Monster
by The Scrawler
Summary: They molded him, shaped him into the very monster they were so afraid he would become. Then they mistakenly thought they could control him. Naruto-centric. Alternate Universe.
1. He Who Wears the Yondaime's Face

**5/30/09 Have edited this chapter slightly. Will probably editing the others too, but no major changes in plot.  
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**I obviously do not own Naruto, or I would not be begging for chapter 439 (: **

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_The monster they saw in Uzumaki Naruto had been a figment of their imagination, a creation of their paranoia. It was they themselves who brought it to life.  


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_**Monster**_

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_"I nearly gave in to all those bad things...But then I found someone who would acknowledge me." _

_-Uzumaki Naruto, manga chapter 2.  
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_This time around, young Naruto never meets this someone.

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Prologue

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_The transformation is startling. The Sandaime hates the feeling of unease that seems to have taken up permanent residence in his stomach, as he looks at the boy, no, the _soldier _standing in front of him. _

_A full-fledged ninja, not a boy. But yet, a boy._

_He is only seven years old- his eighth birthday is in a month's time.  
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_It's only been one year.  
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_He doesn't look radically different from the last time he saw him- his face had already donned that cold and emotionless mask.  
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_However, this time, the chill and impassiveness seems to have been refined and hardened into something much colder, more detached. His blue eyes are sharp and alert, glacial and hard, not the slightest spark of warmth in them.  
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_Yes, he is different._

_The chilliness of his demeanor, his seeming incapability of feeling remorse seems to have been honed and sharpened into something predatory, a dull metal edge crafted into a gleaming steel blade that can slice through anything.  
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_A once harmless boy with nothing other than anger and loneliness polished into a deadly weapon. His very bare hands are weapons in itself. _

_Even as he stands at attention, his muscles are faintly tensed. __It reminds him of__ a __ deadly predator, coiled and ready to spring._

_ Sarutobi can sense the enormous power contained that lies coiled inside of him, like a snake lying in wait.  
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_The analogy makes him uncomfortable. Unbidden, the thoughts of another young ninja he had mentored flashes into his mind. Where everything had gone _so _wrong._

_It's an unpleasant memory, and he pushes it away._

_He wonders whose idea of a joke it was, as he looks at the stylized swirls and markings on the pure white porcelain of his ANBU mask the boy has just slid over his face. The face of a fox, the corners of its mouth twitched up in what appears to be a mocking grin._

_Paying homage to the beast sealed within him. The beast that has granted him a colossal power. The beast whose presence had caused him to become one of the youngest ever members of the Konoha ANBU, at an age where his counterparts are still fumbling with their kunai in the Ninja Academy.  
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_He's told that the boy chose that mask, and he wonders once more if he should have tried harder to look for another way out.  
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_He wonders if he'd allowed Danzou, Koharu and Homura to justify their actions with a pitiful excuse all too easily._

_He wonders how that cheeky, raucous blue-eyed blond haired boy he once knew from what seems a lifetime ago has managed to metamorphose into this unrecognizable soldier. _

_He wonders what the dead Yondaime Hokage would say to him, at the sight of what he's allowed his son to become._

_He wonders if things could have been different._

_He wonders if he's failed Naruto._

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**_Monster_**_**

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_The exact same shade and texture of that blond hair, the same cerulean blue eyes, right down to the facial features and even the expression._

_In another time, they would have smiled at the boy who looked so much like the young Namikaze Minato. A memento of what they had lost.  
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_It was the three whisker marks, like dark scars, on each of his cheeks that reminded the villagers of the truth, and it was because of this that they gazed at him not with kind or nostalgic eyes, but ones full of hatred. _

_The three prominent whisker marks, a reminder of the boy's true identity behind that charismatic resemblance to the Yondaime Hokage. _

_The three lines were markings, signifying the presence of the Kyuubi no Yoko.  
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_Shame on him. _

_Shame on the demon fox, for so brazenly wearing the Yondaime's face, were the dark thoughts that flashed into their minds whenever they were unfortunate enough to catch sight of the blond boy. _

_Others took the stance that there wasn't the slightest resemblance between their beloved Yondaime and the monster fox that was now walking around in human form. To have admitted that that spiky blond hair the Kyuubi no Yoko had bore the least resemblance to the dead Hokage would have been tantamount to an insult to the man who had given up his life to contain the Kyuubi no Yoko._

_Nevertheless, many of them- especially the elder generation that had seen the Yondaime as a young boy, could not help but see the ghost of him in the face of the Kyuubi jinchuuriki. _

_Ghost was perhaps an understatement. The boy was a dead ringer for the young Minato. _

_And they hated it with a passion; it was an utmost sacrilege to have their most revered hero associated with or even compared to the demon fox. _

_They could see it, the Kyuubi no Yoko laughing inside its head, dancing just out of their reach, as it mocked them, ground their faces in the dirt that was defeat. For the monstrous fox still lived on, while their Yondaime was dead.  
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_For while it no longer seemed possess its powerful form and seemed to be unable to use many of its powers through its human medium, it lived on, lying just out of reach, because of that infuriating decree the Sandaime and Village Council had placed upon the village._

_Fox spirits were well-known to be metamorphs who could take on any form they wished. That the demon chose to wear the face of the deceased Yondaime was simply rubbing salt into the wound- that it was free, it was alive and that there was nothing the good villagers of the Hidden Leaf could do about it.

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_**One**_

**_He Who Wears the Yondaime's Face _  
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Everyday, he stood and watched. Everyday he stood alone.

Everyday, he watched as mothers and fathers, or varyingly, older brothers and sisters came to pick up his fellow classmates.

No matter how long he waited, no one ever came for him.

No one.

It had been a sobering realization.

He had asked the Sandaime,_ why was it nobody ever came for him, why was he different from his classmates_? The old man had suddenly seemed years older, his dark eyes full of pity as they regarded him.

He didn't have parents, he learned. They must have died during the Kyuubi attack, the day he was born. In any case, no one could be sure who they were.

But _why_, _why _did they leave him, without even the slightest clue to as to their identity?

Perhaps they had abandoned him. They had not died, but _left _him. This notion filled him with a crushing, overpowering sadness.

The realization that he was so completely _alone_.

The slow, lonely walk home from the Academy, the unfriendly stares from the villagers only underlining the harsh truth.

With every day that passed, he could feel another tiny, spider-webbing crack across the porcelain, the control he had over his emotions becoming more and more tenuous, like an unraveling reel of thread. One day, it would slip from his hands, too far out of his grasp for him to ever reclaim it. It would fall out of his reach, forever beyond the point of no return.

He could feel it, the protective facade he had managed to put up around himself was weakening, the strength of his will faltering. The previously strong and determined voice at the back of his mind that urged him on during the many times of adversity he had encountered had been growing softer and softer, fading into nothingness.

The dispiriting depression hovered over him like a fog, longer nowadays, unable to be dispersed or forgotten.

He knew it was because he was beginning to believe that nothing he could ever do would change anything.

He was forever stuck in this torturous limbo, this painful and damning hell.

It was so ironic, he thought, hating the fact that the hot tears were threatening to spill from his eyes- tears were a sign of weakness, a sign that he had finally let _them _get to him.

He remembered, one blazing hot afternoon, the sun beating down so strongly on the Village of the Hidden Leaf, it seemed that the ground was visibly sizzling. He had stared, fascinated at the mirage he could see, the fuzzing of the image of the Academy building due to the hot water vapour rising off the ground.

He had been shaken out of his reverie by the loud wail of a girl in his class, who had evidently scraped both her knees badly while playing a game of tag. He had watched abstractedly, at the blood tricking from her knees, as a female instructor comforted her, leading her away to get her wound cleaned and tended to. This seemed to placate the girl not the slightest; her loud wails downgraded only to loud sniffs, between which she yelped how much _it hurt_, _it hurt so bad, she wanted her mother. _

He couldn't help it, the words were already spilling out of his mouth.

"You think _that _hurts?" It was a simple question, but he knew the girl could hear the faint indignation and anger just under the surface of his neutral tone.

It showed, because the solicitous female instructor's motherly expression transformed rapidly into a scowl at the sight of him, and most likely at his audacity to insinuate cowardliness on the part of a young, vulnerable innocent fellow six-year old. But_ no_, he remembered, to her, he was not just some childishly insensitive kid, but some _malevolent, evil creature who was only showing not his utter lack of tact, but _humanity_, by making such a remark. _He didn't know why any of them thought he was some sort of insidious entity, but that was what they thought of him, from the not-so-subtle comments muttered that he had managed to pick up.

He hated the way his heart clenched as though it had been pierced with shards of ice, from the cold glare the woman sent him before she turned away, leading the young girl away by the hand. It wasn't even a particularly fierce glare, but the way the instructor's steel-gray eyes lost their warmth and filled with barely concealed resentment, as they met his. It felt like what it must be like to have someone twisting a kunai into his side, slowly and prolonging the pain.

The worst pain was not physical, or at least did not have to be physical. Maybe it was because he everytime he scraped his knees, the wound would easily be healed within an hour, or at most a day, unlike the other children. But he knew that to him, it was not the stinging pain of a wound that seemed to hurt the worst.

It was the simple, frosty glare, the imaginary daggers being hurled at his person, the way expressions transformed perceptibly whenever they caught sight of him, into one of disdain, of hatred and dislike. The look that told him they saw him to be below the very dirt on the ground, that he was a walking pariah, that told him they saw it of utmost sacrilege that he had been so audacious as to dare to show his face in the light of the day.

Many a time, he wondered just _what _on earth he had done to them. Just _what _was it that he had done to them that had warranted the seething, burning glares, the uncomfortable looks, the sharp jerks of mothers dragging their children away from his path, to keep them from being corrupted, _twisted _by him.

He supposed he could have been flattered somewhat sarcastically that they thought his barely six-year-old self capable of such cunning machinations.

It mystified him, really, how those mothers, their warm and maternal faces seemed to almost glow as they played with their children. Yet these very same faces could twist into such icy looks of distaste and disgust, their faces warped beyond recognition, till they bore no resemblance to the benevolent expressions they had been wearing a second ago, when their eyes fell on him, just another six-year-old. It was almost terrifying, this transformation.

He pondered what was it about him that set him apart from the other children his age, that made everyone instinctively feel resentment and disgust.

_Bakemono_. Monster, they called him, he managed to catch from their not-so subtle whispers.

It occurred to him that they purposely talked _just _loudly enough, muttered those words in his presence just to make sure he got a good idea what they thought of him. It was their way of twisting the imaginary kunai in his side, some way of making their hatred and resentment of him _really _hurt him, a way to materialize the imaginary daggers into something that truly caused pain.

Such truly sickening people they were, he thought. _They _were the real monsters He did not understand, simply _could not _reconcile how those mothers and fathers who smiled so kindly upon their own young children could be capable of such insidious hate and revulsion towards him_, he _who had not even done anything to them other then being born, as far as he had known, and was as much a child as those children they smothered with love.

Even those who simply ignored him ignored him not as though how one might display indifference to a stranger, but with a callousness with which one would regard an object of their abject dislike.

He wondered why they didn't just come out and be up front about things, to come out and shout all the hurtful words he knew they wanted to say to him, to come out and attack him directly, to translate the visceral hatred they held of him into real actions. It was tempting to assume that they did not hate him enough to actually want to hurt him physically.

But he knew better. The pure, unbridled hatred in their expressions were restrained, stopped only by what he assumed must be some invisible law or decree, not because they did not hate him to that extent.

It was very easy, the first time, to ignore them. To chalk it up to the entire village simultaneously being in a bad mood, having a particularly bad day, all waking up on the wrong side of the bed that morning in perfect synchrony, although somewhere at the back of his mind, it gnawed at him that he was simply lying to himself.

It was very easy, even after it hit him that the object of their anger was him, to ignore them, to regard them almost pitifully as ignorant individuals who didn't know any better, to behave normally with them, to pretend he didn't see the unfriendly eyes barely concealed behind the barest semblance of a fake smile when he tried to buy some food at a roadside stall, when he tried to ask the Academy teacher to let him use the bathroom. To still smile a real smile in reply to their fake ones or outright glares.

It was easy, even when he realized that no matter how much he spoke politely to them despite their rudeness, to show them what a completely ridiculous perception they held of him, they never changed their opinions, the iciness of their expressions never relenting or abating, to just tolerate them, to hide behind his protective facade of happiness.

All these years he maintained perfect control of this shield, hoping for the day he wouldn't need it.

But yet, like an insidious poison, the tangible hate they directed towards him eroded away his resistance, slowly but surely wore down the protective facade he had built up around himself. It ate into him, minute after minute, hour after hour, for days, the weeks, the months, the years.

For despite the fantastical notions they had of him being a monster, he was all-too human.

Human in that he had feelings.

Human in that he had a heart.

Human in that he had tears, and now they ran, hot and sticky down the sides of his face, as his small body shook with uncontrollable sobs.

He cursed himself for his weakness, for finally allowing them to break him, although he was in the relative sanctuary of his apartment, all by himself. He was sure that they knew, and that somewhere they were laughing that they had managed to shatter him.

Eventually, his growling stomach reminded him he needed to get some food. The empty refrigerator and cabinets meant he would have to go out and face them, a small, lone, defenseless figure. Pocketing some money the Sandaime had given him, he slipped out of the door.

It was raining outside, but he just didn't care. It was all the better, as most people now pulled out umbrellas or scurried to take shelter. It meant the street would be emptier of his tormentors.

As he walked, letting the rain soak into his clothes, ignoring the chill they sent to his bones; in fact relishing the feeling of physical numbness they imbued in him that he hoped would somehow transfer to his emotions, only so if it meant he would not feel pained by their accusatory stares, the nasty, whispered comments that floated around him like a smog, unable to disperse.

He could feel himself beginning to shiver; for the high temperatures in the day, Konoha could be pretty cold at night. Still, it was no matter. He never seemed to catch a chill or a fever. In fact, he only had a vague idea as to what they were.

In the rain, he spotted a brightly lit ramen stand he had frequented a few times before. It was one of the few places where he was served without a customary glare or plastic smile specifically engineered to allow the receiver to know the lack of sincerity behind it. In his opinion, the man and his daughter who owned the stand were like the Sandaime, they probably just felt a vague sense of pity for him, so they tolerated him.

That had been enough for him, but now as his mask lay fallen, shattered into pieces, he was unsure if it would still be sufficient to prevent himself from drowning into depression.

Then he stopped short, just as he was only a few yards away, an uncomfortable and vaguely nauseating feeling stirring in his gut.

There was a man at the ramen stand, a familiar figure. He was wearing a chuunin vest, his dark hair in a ponytail.

His legs would not move. He recognized the man, he was one of the instructors at the Academy. An image of the female instructor appeared in his mind, the cold glare in her gray eyes that had so easily pierced his very being, the unfriendly and guarded posture, the look she gave him that conveyed to him her utter hatred of him.

His hand shook. He could not bring himself to walk to the ramen stand, to face another of those cold, painful glares the man would surely shoot him, as his colleague had done, as much as his stomach gnawed, begging to be filled with a hot meal. He was weak and vulnerable now, the facade that protected him now broken into innumerable pieces.

He knew he was a coward, he hated it bitterly that he had allowed them to win, but he turned around, retracing his steps. His body felt like a leaden weight, his heart felt heavy, every step forward seemed to require a monumental effort, as though he had leg irons chained on, dragging him down.

He managed to make it into his apartment, and for once, the silence of it was not a welcome respite from the ugliness he faced outside, but a cold reminder of how he had no one.

No one who cared, no one who waited for him. It occurred to him just how shabbily the walls were painted, he suddenly seemed more aware of the peeling paint, the cracks in the walls, the creaking of the cupboards, the pitiful state of his homestead seemed all the more pronounced.

It seemed sad and dilapidated, a lifeless and desolate prison, of which he was the sole occupant, an accurate metaphor of the state of his own life.

He never felt more alone, as he crawled under the thin blanket, trying to ignore the dull ache of his stomach.

He felt the tears gathering in his eyes as he thought again of the faceless man and woman who had been his parents. Why did they leave him? The same, pitiful question presented itself once more in his mind.

The notion that they might have had callously left him by _choice _filled him with a terrible, depressing despair. He felt the building liquid in his eyes spill over.

He was angry, furious with them, for abandoning him. For leaving, leaving him without even the slightest hint as to their identity, nor even scraps of photographs, memories that he could cling on to. Not even a name or a face, so that at least in his dreamworld, he could imagine them smiling down upon him.

He hated them with every fiber of their being, for their cruelty in casting him off, to face the ugly world all by himself.

Their utter heartlessness.

Yet, what he felt was not a consuming rage, but instead a bleak sense of emptiness, tinged with loneliness. A hollow feeling of depression. For all that he hated them, more then anything else, he knew he wished the unknown man and woman were here right now, their arms around him, comforting him.

He was so weary. So tired, tired of this farce. Tired of everything.

He realized what a fool he had been.

Somewhere, inside him, the seed of a dark, cold anger made its presence known.

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Mitsuki hummed to herself as she arranged the papers on the teacher's desk, as she watched the Academy students file in. She loved her job at the Academy, it was her love and joy to teach the future generation of ninjas that were the hope of Konoha, as Sandaime-sama had put it, when he had emphasized the important roles teachers like herself played in ensuring the future of the village, she thought with no less pride.

Well, there was one tiny caveat. Perhaps not _quite _tiny, actually. Her lips pursing into a frown, her thoughts darkened as she turned her gaze on the blue-eyed blond boy who sat in the front row.

If only that abominable creature wasn't in her class, she thought darkly. The shamelessness and audacity of that monster sickened her thoroughly.

The blond hair and blue eyes that exactly matched the Yondaime Hokage's, it was an utter travesty by that demon fox, daring to wear the Fourth Hokage's face, as a way to _mock _the sacrifice of their beloved leader in the most disgusting manner. It was deeply disturbing to her, to see the face of the young Yondaime being worn by the monster they all knew was truly behind the mask, and it stirred up an icy fury in her at the audacity of the demon to play such a disgustingly perverse joke.

Every single time she had the misfortune to catch sight of him, she wanted nothing more then to wipe off the mocking smile the boy wore on his face.

It never ceased to anger her, the way the monster _dared _to walk freely amongst the people whose families he had killed and wounded. She remembered her parents, the smiling man and woman that had been her life, whom it had so cruelly snatched away.

It disturbed her the way the Sandaime seemed all too at ease with the demon fox, how easily he believed that the boy was only a container, instead of effectively being the reincarnation of the Kyuubi no Yoko. Was it not blindingly obvious? Fox spirits were tricksters, after all.

It was so like the Kyuubi to don the face of the Yondaime, true to its malicious nature. The way the boy always seemed unaffected by the glares and unfriendly looks the villager shot him, as though it was just water rolling off a duck's back.

Obviously, because he _basked _in it, it was just one grand, sick _joke _to him, taking advantage of the Sandaime's goodwill, the way he moved among them, dancing just beyond their reach because of the decree the Hokage had placed upon the village that promised severe punishment for whomever dared to raise a hand to the demon or to speak of the boy's true nature.

It was true the boy had not hurt anyone-at least not that they knew of, but she knew better. The fox was just lying low, mocking the villagers, and to ensure the senile Council Elders that had been so supremely stupid to agree with the Hokage's bad decision would too, lower its guard. One day, it would reveal its true self, she knew.

Those whisker marks that adorned the boy's face, was it not a sign of the demon itself?

She knew many hated the brazen manner the demon paraded around the village, just out of their reach. But they would never raise a hand to the fox's human form, only because they saw it an utter insult and dishonor to be executed or punished by the village leadership over the demon.

Her mouth pressed in a thin line, as she turned from the blackboard where she had written the theory about the different handseals, she saw that the impudent demon was lying his head on the table, obviously sleeping. The demon unquestionably did not need to sleep, it just loved to deliciously play with their minds, to rub them the wrong way.

"Uzumaki!" She snapped, barely able to conceal the venom in her voice.

The demon fox looked up at her calmly, the usual cheeky grin eerily absent. Something gnawed at Mitsuki's intuition.

The almost stricken, sad face of the demon when she had glared at him coldly yesterday when he dared to pick on one of her charges flashed into her mind. She firmly pushed it aside, she would not fall for any of the Kyuubi's duplicitous tricks.

"What is it, sensei?" He asked, his voice completely lacking any inflection, like the still and calm surface of the lake. However, the malevolent undercurrents were unmistakable, like a storm brewing just beneath the surface.

The blue eyes were cold, sharp shards of glass, completely devoid of the fake warmth the fox had at least mustered up as part of its illusion in the past.

It profoundly frightened her. Mitsuki found her hand trembling slightly, unaware that they had garnered the attention of the entire class of children, all of whom had stopped their conversations and were peering curiously at their sensei.

"P-pay attention," she ground out stiffly.

It was like a perfectly donned mask, his face completely bereft of any expression, a total one-eighty from the usual mischievous grin. Yet, she could see the inhuman, frigid, deeply frightening animosity that danced in his eyes, the hideously terrifying fury that seemed barely held back, that trapped her in its deadly gaze. She felt an unmitigated sense of dread blooming within her.

The sinister, mocking grin the demon fox used to wear everyday, that aroused that deep anger in her paled in comparison.

It now seemed benign, in contrast with the contained, but pure malevolence she was now confronted with.

Then, the demon fox smiled a smile of unadulterated malice that chilled her to the marrow of her bones. It was gone almost in an instant, the image that the demon within wore of the Yondaime melding back into the emotionless facade, the stormy blue eyes now blank and deadened, leaving her unsure if she had imagined it all.

The vacant, lifeless expression scared her, simply a mask for the seething malevolence and loathing she now knew was unleashed behind it.

She was shaking with a fear and consummate terror she had never known, her knuckles white.

_This _was the real face of a monster.

_The reel had slipped, slipped from his grasp, down to the dark abyss, beyond the point of no return. _

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**Please review, thanks. Apologies for any spelling errors, e.g because I don't have a beta.**

**Do let me know what you think, to be honest, I haven't decided what to do with this, to leave it as a oneshot or continue some drabble series thingy, or to attempt to, for once, write a proper story.**

**With regards to the chuunin Academy instructor's opinion that the Kyuubi was wearing the face of the Yondaime, in my opinion, I find it hard to believe that the villagers were so blind to not notice the striking resemblance between the two. They probably were unaware that the Yondaime had a son, and were also rather hazy on the exact details of the sealing. To them, they believed Naruto and the Kyuubi were one and the same. They saw it as the demon fox masquerading as a human with the face of the Fourth as some sort of sick, sadistic Kyuubi-esque joke, especially with how fox spirits are known to be shape-shifters in Japanese mythology.**

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	2. If Shame Had a Face

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**Hey, thanks for all of your kind reviews and favs. I'm kinda experimenting with this story right now, and it may be in a different kind of format and shorter then a normal story. I'll just see where this takes me.

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**Monster**

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_**Two**_

_**If Shame Had a Face**_

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The time he had smiled as he helped up a girl who had tripped and fallen during recess at the Academy, he had intended to mark her as his next victim.

The time he had picked up and handed back to his classmate a pencil he had dropped onto the floor, he had been trying to possess the boy.

The time he had laughed at the sight of a man tripping and falling headward into a cart full of apples, he was indulging in his sadistic desires and making light of other's miseries.

The time he had let his mind drift and started staring out of the window of the Academy instead of at the chalk board, he was mulling over his various evil plots for world domination and how to get loose from his human prison.

The time he had suddenly burst out laughing; unable to contain himself at the sight of one of the particularly disagreeable chuunin instructors sporting pink hair, courtesy of his prank, it meant that the Kyuubi was loose and after all of them for revenge, they had muttered. Nonetheless, if it came down to it, not even the Sandaime's decree would save the demon fox, they promised privately. There was no feeling of trepidation or the slightest fear, but instead a sort of feeling of bravado and scorn, itching to reach out and squash the source of their hatred like a bug.

The time he had walked into the classroom quietly, his face a blank mask, blue eyes stormy, the citizens of the Hidden Leaf felt something else other then the instinctive welling resentment and distaste.

A slight something, a fluttering of their subconscious, of the unknown and the very beginnings of fear.

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"Why should I die for _Konoha_, sensei?" The sentence was said simply, even casually, without an ounce of concern or feeling.

That simple sentence threw him off. Somewhere, at the back of his mind, he bristled at the thought that his young charge was so disloyal and behaving all-too nonchalant about the duty of a Konoha ninja. Somewhere, a nasty voice reminded him that _this was the container of the Kyuubi no Yoko, what did he expect?_

He faintly registered that his fellow colleague, Mitsuki who was gathering up some papers on the table, had been noticeably affected upon hearing those words.

Naruto eyed the brown-haired chuunin instructor idly. The man seemed almost...surprised. Mitsuki-sensei seemed to be shaken too.

He wondered faintly why they had such cause to be.

After all, wasn't he the village pariah, the evil pestilence that would rain down death and destruction on the Hidden Leaf, as they loved whisper darkly? Where had they gotten the inkling that he would feel particularly protective over the village, much less die for the people who shunned him everyday?

He registered somewhere that the chuunin instructor- Iruka-sensei was his name- and Mitsuki-sensei were looking at him with a strange turmoil in their eyes.

They had nothing to be worried about; all that meant was that he felt a total indifference to Konoha. He did not have the energy to plot his revenge. He did not have the energy to hate them with a burning passion, to work up the necessary anger to become a missing-nin or to leave the village.

It was because, to him, he couldn't care less whatever happened to Konoha. To have felt enough anger to want to stab them in the back indicated that the Leaf and its people had mattered to him. And that was the last thing he wanted to believe.

That would suit them both nicely, wouldn't it? He'd keep out of their way- he was sure that if someone of his standing was allowed to become a ninja, they would deem it some sort of sacrilegious act- and they'd keep out of his.

He wouldn't wear the metal hitae-ate of Konoha, he would not fight under the seal of the leaf carved into the gleaming metal, he would not bleed and get his disgusting blood on the _honorable _emblem of the Leaf.

So, Uzumaki Naruto decided, he would not become a ninja.

He had been sure that would please them, so he was slightly perplexed at their expressions in response to his comments that he would not die for Konoha. They had looked almost expectant.

Expected him to be loyal, patriotic to Konoha, he guessed. That he'd say he _would _die for Konoha. He frowned, that did not make sense.

Or maybe they were hoping that he was willing to die for Konoha so that they would be rid of him once and for all, he mused.

Without realizing it, he continued walking, deep in thought right past Iruka-sensei, out of the classroom, leaving his flummoxed teachers to stare after him.

People were such strange creatures, really.

* * *

And so, the time that he had left his surprised teachers behind, after nonchalantly questioning why he would die for Konoha, it meant the Kyuubi no Yoko was _finally _loose (for real) this time and would be after all of them for revenge; his comment had been nothing other then a veiled threat. The fact that by sundown of that day that no one had yet to have been killed was plainly interpreted as the Kyuubi no Yoko biding its time. It was obviously plotting how to unleash its wrath and fury on the whole village, as it had on that terrifying night six years earlier, to torture them in the waiting period, knowing the time of reckoning had finally come.

The rumour spread, and as it travelled from messenger to messenger, soon it was that the Kyuubi had directly threatened one of the Academy teachers, that too morphed into the frantic whispers that the fox had straightforwardly declared he was going to pick up where he left off six years ago, and have his vengeance on Konoha once and for all.

Most did not take it seriously- to them, the Kyuubi no Yoko was trapped in the body of child, although it might be conscious. Plus, with any wrong move, it would be easy to neutralize any threat he presented- powerful demon or not, the fox was in the untrained and weak body of a six-year old and seemed to be unable to channel most of his powers through his human medium. Nonetheless, it did serve as a further excuse to muster up additional resentment against the boy: clearly, he did not have benign intentions towards Konoha.

There were always a few, however.

A plan to "take care" of the demon fox never left the mouths of the group of drunken villagers whom had looked up in the midst of their alcoholic daze to be greeted with the unsmiling, porcelain animal masks of two Konoha ANBU, on orders from the Sandaime.

* * *

It would be an understatement to say that a few of these particularly distrustful people were shocked and almost embarrassed to emerge from their barracked houses the next day to realize that the world had in fact, _not _ended. That the village was still standing, and the street was empty of the blood or corpses of the unfortunate victims the Kyuubi no Yoko decided to take out its rage on- came rather as a surprise.

That was until they saw the Kyuubi no Yoko itself walking towards them in its human form.

They stiffened, not wanting the piece of scum to think that they feared him, wondering what kind of taunt he would throw out now to rub in their face, or if he was finally coming for them.

Their overactive imaginations came crashing down rather anti-climatically when the demon fox simply strolled all the way past them, never meeting their eyes or even acknowledging their presence. He soon disappeared round the corner.

* * *

He had finally come to a resolution, after spending his entire life tolerating their taunts, their insults, the terrible comments that just dehumanized him.

When the tears had finally dried, he felt himself almost bereft of feeling. Emotionless, numb.

Yet, they had stirred a deep well of anger in him that he never knew existed.

He would eliminate them all, not in reality or physically, but by simple indifference. It was the same as their not existing, and that would suit him just fine. They did not matter, they were people who felt it necessary to be cruel for no apparent reason, they did not merit occupying his attention or mind.

When he had no choice but to interact with them, he would no longer waste his time or energy putting up the facade of cheerfulness he thought could help dull the pain. This mask of cheerfulness, he realized, all this while, had never helped numb the pain. It was simply a refuge for him to hide behind.

More importantly, he had realized bitterly, he had been hoping all along that it would change their seemingly negative impressions of him. It disturbed him to realize that having his overtures thrown back in his face with a single, unsmiling expression had really hurt. He hated it that they, whom had never treated him like a human being ever since he was born, seemed to affect him so much. They seemed to bother him, he seemed so anxious to gain their acceptance.

The implication that in his minds, these _monsters _mattered to him, was something he refused to reconcile with. They were only shackles that dragged him down into the depths of despair, that impaired him from feeling anything other then hurt and pain.

So he decided to free himself from these shackles.

He would erase them from his heart.

He just didn't care anymore.

* * *

He frowned, when he realized his request to withdraw his enrollment from the Konoha Ninja Academy had been firmly-but uncharacteristically- politely, blocked.

By whom, the Sandaime said he was not at liberty to disclose. The old man had looked at him with a sort of disappointment, asking that Naruto now strive to do his best in the life of a ninja he was destined to walk.

Naruto had tried to give some semblance of a smile; the old man was after all someone who was at least decent to him. However, in his heart, he did not mean it. There was little meaning in anything in life.

But if he had to fight for someone as a ninja, then perhaps it was only the Sandaime that he could fight for.

He owed nothing to the Hidden Leaf. All they had given him was coldness and misery, so they would get nothing in return.

* * *

The complete lack of emotion in the blonde boy's expression, the way the cerulean blue eyes seemed blank and lifeless unnerved Sarutobi. This was a face many ANBU often wore, but it was utterly misplaced on the face of a child. It was eerily frightening.

The way he stared at the Sandaime, his eyes bizarrely empty- was almost inhuman, the dried blood that was splattered over his face and matted his hair, encrusted dark stains soaked into his clothes only added to the general effect.

His mind began to drift, back through all those years, to that fateful night. He could still remember it with sharp clarity, as though it were happening this very moment.

_An immense monster, full of malevolent demonic chakra, red eyes glowing, giant jaws lined with gleaming, razor sharp teeth pulled back into a vicious snarl. The monster let out a ear-splitting roar, which reverberated violently like an earthquake. Silhouetted in the moonlight, were the nine, long tails that identified the Kyuubi no Yoko._

_The inhuman chakra that swept over them was nothing short of malice personified, the killer intent radiating from the demon swept over them, suffocating, like a choking, stifling fog that also paralyzed them with incalculable fear._

_The blood, the tangible desperation and death hanging in the air, the dead bodies on the ground, all at the mercy of this inhuman entity full of evil._

The Sandaime tried to no avail _not _to see hulking silhouette of the Kyuubi no Yoko looming behind, in Naruto's shadow, but failed. The monster seemed to reach to its full height, baring its sharp canines. The gleaming red eyes full of pure malice he remembered from that night seemed to be burning into Sarutobi from the boy's very soul.

The boy's emotionless words rang in his mind.

A nonchalant shrug.

_Yeah, he was bleeding._

_Well, I just left him there. I let him die._

_Why would I call for back-up? I managed to take care of the enemy on my own. _

_Protocol?_

_ What responsibility have I to save this man? He does not matter to me. I am not even a full-fledged ninja, old man.  
_

The Sandaime felt surreal as he listened to the unfeeling answers the boy rattled off like an automaton, a machine. He felt a growing dread in the pit of his stomach. A chill took over him as he stared at the ninja- no, the _child_-in front of him. Some part of him reasoned the boy was probably still traumatized by the incident, but deep down, he that knew it was only attempt to reassure himself.

The dark, black letters on the piece of paper in his hands detailed what had happened, but brought him no peace.

The boy had gotten entangled in a confrontation between a Konoha chuunin and an unidentified enemy ninja who had sneaked into the village on a reconnaissance mission. He had managed to catch the intruder-whom had dismissed him as being a helpless child and attempted to kill him- off-guard, and stabbed him in the neck.

And then he had simply left the bleeding Leaf chuunin to die. Which the chuunin had.

What shook Sarutobi the most was the fact that the young boy had sat there and _watched_. He had not walked off, but sat there, watching as the man finally succumbed to his injuries.

_What have we done, Konoha?

* * *

_He noticed how she froze when his eyes fell upon her, he having just emerged from the Hokage tower from his meeting with the Hokage.

It was funny, he thought lightly, why would she be scared of a child half her height, someone whom she could easily take down? Hadn't she glared and bristled at his offending presence in the Academy- as though she were the one in control, annoyed at he- _the trash_ (beautifully put in her very own words) she had to teach?

He, the irritating little thing she could kick around the room as she pleased, like a witless, defenseless animal. A punching bag to take out whatever unwarranted self-righteous rage she felt towards him, or simply as an object to vent any anger and frustrations she encountered that day with things unrelated to him.

The image of her comforting the girl who had fallen and cut her knees came to his mind. It was dizzying, to think how she could have two sides to her, polar opposites. It all depended on what they meant to her, he realized. It was the same for the rest of villagers. Parents who showered their children- and even other's children with love- could somehow find it in themselves to bring out such a horrible hate towards him.

He waited for her to come up to him and mutter how he dared to show his face in the light of the day, or to send him a simple, sharp cold glare that he now knew would not affect him. He watched calmly, his expression never changing as she began walking again-he noted with interest- back in the direction she had come from, noticeably shaken.

Reaching up to brush a strand out of hair from his eyes, he was reminded of the congealed blood, now a dark brown, emanating a sort of metallic smell, that had been splattered on his face and clothes. Examining his reflection in a shop window, he looked at his bloodied state, his clothes town and ripped, looking like a savage. Covered in the blood of the unknown man he had killed earlier.

_He remembered the surreal feeling as the scarlet liquid sprayed all over him, and the man slumped over, unmoving. He had frowned, when he realized the man was not moving, and he wondered why that was so. Then he learned that he had fatally wounded him, from the two grim-looking ANBU who had found him. Killed him._

_He honestly could not bring himself to be bothered or even shocked. He briefly wondered why the Sandaime seemed to have expected him to be._

He appeared to be a savage monster.

He turned back to the street, a slow realization dawning upon him. The people passing by him, their faces he remembered so well, the way they would twist into scowls or glares now looked different.

Nervous.

Anxious, perplexed.

They _feared _him.

_Mitsuki-sensei_ feared him.

He was strangely amused at their foolishness. They feared him because, covered in blood and smiling mischievously, he now looked liked the monster they had concocted him to be. They had whispered conspiratorially about his non-existent murderous exploits and rampages. They were the ones who started it all, they were the ones who chose, for some god-knows-what reason, to demonize him, to build him up to be some fearsome and terrible imaginary creature that was full of malice.

He let his gaze wander, before it settled on a roadside fruit seller. He studied the rotund, fairly non-descript looking man with black hair bagging some fruits for a customer, talking animatedly. It came to him that this was the same man who had shouted at him for laughing at a particularly unfortunate customer who had somehow accidentally fallen head-wards into the cart full of apples a few months ago.

He remembered how quickly his feeling of humor had so quickly switched to one of shock as he stood listening to the man lambast him harshly, in front of the silent, but approving crowd.

For laughing.

For making light of other people's _miseries_.

He remembered how he had slowly walked away, his head down in shame and embarrassment, as the disapproving whispers from the onlookers drifted to his ears, trying to hide the hot tears that had managed to escape from his eyes.

A few days later, he had quietly asked the Sandaime what misery meant. Even then, he had not dared to laugh for a long while after that incident.

His blue eyes stared unflinchingly at the same man now, as he approached the stall.

It was interesting to see how the man's air of self-confidence and bravado suddenly seemed to evaporate into nothingness, when he realized who was standing in front of his stall. The choice words he would have shouted at the boy died instantly in his throat as he took in the uncharacteristic, blood-stained, almost feral appearance of the Kyuubi no Yoko.

Or perhaps it was all _too _characteristic.

Naruto boredly picked an apple, and dug in his pocket for some loose change to pay the man, who stood there looking stunned and rather unresponsive.

The trembling of the fruit-seller's hand as he took his money after finally snapping out of his funk did not escape the blond's notice.

A hideous, perverse and warped thought presented himself in his mind.

"You're next," He said calmly, aware he looked slightly crazed. That was the intended effect, after all.

"Thank you for the fruits. I hope we meet again."

The sound gurgling sound of the man spluttering in fear like a fish out of water, dropping a basket he was holding with a loud crash amused him.

As he walked home, he pondered just why they decided to see the worst of him, no matter how hard he tried in the past. Why did they have this deep-rooted prejudice from the very beginning? It still did not make sense to him.

Nonetheless, they were such fools. Sad, pathetic fools. Everything had in fact been a figment of their imagination, and they now allowed it to control them. It was so ironic, these people. How they built him up, allowed their imagination to run wild, shooting their unwarranted hatred at his person. And how they now trembled just because he seemed to be finally proving them right, appearing to be what they said he was. It was hilarious.

He found himself laughing, laughing in pure hysterics, unable to stop, his eyes wild and crazed. He laughed for a long, long time, till his sides ached and he was breathless.

The villagers averted their eyes, giving the deranged-looking blond child a wide berth, their hearts hammering rapidly in their chests.

They didn't understand at all. He cared not a whit about Konoha, much less about going to trouble of destroying it for revenge- a claim he had heard many rather unsubtle villagers accuse him amidst their whispers and mutters.

But why not make them _think _he was.

It would be an ultimate joke.

It would be something more interesting, more fulfilling then just imagining they did not exist, did not matter.

He would trick them into fearing him. He would appear to prove them right, it would be a perfect amusement for him, a perfect mind game to play with the citizens of the Hidden Leaf. And he would have fun while doing it.

The look of pure terror in the chubby fruit-seller's eyes, like that of a prey being stalked by a predator had aroused a twisted sort of pleasure in him. He relished it, the tangible fear in Mitsuki-sensei's eyes when she saw him, the sort of involuntary terror he could almost taste. It gave him an intoxicating feeling he had never felt before.

One of _power_. Of strength, of _control _over them, for they feared him.

It was a heady, addictive sensation, and he found himself longing to experience it once more, to reach out to that primal part of the human subconscious, to play with their minds, with their fear, and to mold it into his liking.

He decided, he would turn their prejudice against them, he would make them feel true fear, he would warp their imaginations, he would make them shake and tremble in fright, he would reaffirm that he was a real monster. He might not have the physical strength- it was only sheer, dumb luck he had managed to incapacitate the intruder- but he could bend their minds to his will, manipulating them skilfully like a master puppeteer, turning the tables, hurting them with the very weapons they had brandished and tried use against him.

Distantly, his mind flitted to the thought of his anonymous parents. Some part of him wondered what they would think of him now, his bad, hideous behavior, his twisted thinking.

Perhaps they would be angry with him. Perhaps they would scold him, or ground him, like how he had seen parents angrily reprimanding their children in public, and from what he had gleaned about the job of parents from the grumblings of his classmates.

He reminded himself that wondering _what ifs_ in this area was pointless. He had no parents, as far as he had known, they had effectively abandoned him.

* * *

A lone figure in the Hokage's office, the Sandaime Hokage watched the blond boy through his crystal, studying the dark expression that had flashed across his face, before it melded back into the blank facade. His dark eyes narrowed, he had seen the entire confrontation between the boy and the fruit stall holder.

Sarutobi found his eyes drifting, till they landed on the visage of the deceased blond Yondaime Hokage, looking down from his portrait beside the other three Hokages.

He closed his eyes, letting out a deep, melancholy sigh, blowing out rings of cigarette smoke, feeling pained.

_The face of his successor, smiling youthfully, a beautiful red-haired woman next to him, one hand fondly placed on her swollen belly. . _

A world away, a lifetime ago, he thought, with nostalgia, and not without a hint of sadness.

He suddenly felt weary, the strain, the faint ache in his limbs magnified, making him feel his age, the signs that reminded him poignantly how he was no longer in his prime, that a time he longed for was forever gone.

_The back of a white-haired man as he left through the enormous gates of Konoha in the pouring rain, never looking back. _

His eyes then wandered out the window, to the villagers milling around, going about their lives on the streets of Konoha, below the Hokage tower, and then back to his faint reflection in the glass.

_If shame had a face..._

* * *

**A/N: Basically, Naruto actually doesn't really understand things like death that much, and after all these years of verbal abuse from the villagers, his mind has begun to teeter over the edge a little, and he has a bit of an emotional disconnect due to the type of childhood he has. Though, he isn't a rampaging killer or anything like Gaara right now, he's certainly not thinking like a normal person. The fact that he barely thinks about what would be a totally shocking incident to others; when he inadvertently killed the intruder is simply showing this. With regards to his using complicated words, such as "malevolent", it's because he heard the villagers refer to him as such. He doesn't really know the meaning of all the words, but he knows it's supposed to have a negative connotation. **

**Just to clarify, he has no idea about the Kyuubi being sealed in him, which is why he finds the villagers' behaviors amusing.**

**Once more, apologies for any spelling errors, I did my best to check it over.  
**

**Please read and review, thanks (:  
**

_

* * *

_


	3. Fanning the Flames

_

* * *

_

_"I hated everyone... I wasn't able to understand who I was, why I existed as a hated being...But then someone acknowledged me..." -Uzumaki Naruto, manga chapter 132_

_A moment in time, yet one that fundamentally shaped his path. In a time where Naruto doesn't meet this someone, his life continues down that dark path..._

* * *

**_Monster_**

**_

* * *

_**

_In the pitch darkness, eyelids slowly slid open to reveal blood red irises with slit-like pupils._

_The creature's mouth shaped into a semblance of a malicious smile, revealing rows upon rows of gleaming, dagger-like teeth, crimson eyes seething with a pure, unadulterated animosity._

**_It's been six years in this prison...finally I am awakened...  
_**

**_Let's see who gets the last laugh, Yondaime_-sama.**

_

* * *

_

**_Three_**

_**Fanning the Flames**_

* * *

_He realized he was bleeding more then he had ever bled in his relatively short life. He could feel the rivulets of the red liquid trickling down his forehead, the wetness of his clothes as profuse amounts of blood escaped out of the deep wound in his side._

_He had never seen so much blood in his life, he thought, from his prone position on the ground, watching abstractedly at the dark crimson pool rapidly coloring the dirt._

_It faintly came to him that all this blood belonged to him. A vague feeling of alarm gripped him, though he was confused for a while as to what was it exactly that he ought to be alarmed about._

_"Stupid boy..."_

_It was unnatural, abnormal. There shouldn't be so much blood, should there? _

_He thought of the paper cuts he sometimes got. They healed within minutes, leaving nary a scar behind._

_The image of a crying, wailing girl. She limped slowly away, led by the female instructor, blood trickling from both her knees. _

_He had frowned. Why was that so? Wouldn't her wound heal within an hour, like his did? _

_Was it possible to bleed this much? He had never lost so much blood. This was unusual. _

_It was bad to lose so much blood, he was sure he had heard somewhere. He couldn't really explain the mechanics, though. He saw the corners of his vision darkening, his head felt like it was in a deep fog. The slightest movement to try to grab a discarded kunai to mount some pathetic pretense of a defense seemed to require a monumental effort._

_Is it the end for me...? What comes after this?_

_Is it death?_

_What exactly does it mean to die?_

_The mysterious man stepped closer, katana in hand. _

_"...I'll kill you, _pitiful _brat."_

_-The tears were running down his face, and he couldn't seem to stop them no matter how hard he tried.-_

_[Pitiful...]_

**_Shut up_**_...I don't...want to hear it..._

_-Pitiful little boy...no one likes you, you know? An ugly sneer-_

_[Pitiful...?]_

**_Shut up._**

_-How pitiful he looks, crying those crocodile tears, eh? Reduced from his power and grandeur, to a miserable, snivelling little coward. A snigger, a taunting laugh.-_

**_SHUT UP!_**

_A moment of startling alertness, his senses acute with an unnatural sharpness. The haze that filled his mind had been dissipated. His vision snapped back into crystal clarity. He could hear the thumping of his heart, feel the rushing of the blood in his ears. The atmosphere suddenly seemed electric, alive, blazing with energy._

_The flash of a kunai in the moonlight._

_The man's shout abruptly dying in his throat._

_A brief instance of silence and stillness, a moment in time._

_Then, a gurgling noise. Red liquid erupting in a splendid crimson spray from the man's throat. The surreal feeling of the blood splattering onto his face, his hair, soaking into his clothes, adding on to the blood from his own wounds._

_The dazed realization that the hand holding the kunai was none other than his own._

_He could feel the blood pounding in his ears, the adrenaline rushing through his veins. His breaths coming out in heavy pants, his lungs greedily sucking in oxygen in gulps. His hands were trembling uncontrollably from the exertion._

_The soft thump as the man fell backwards, eyes wide open in shock, as he clawed uselessly at his throat, from which the knife handle stuck out._

_Slowly getting up, he had walked over to the man's body, where it had slumped on the ground, peering at his face._

_He had watched-as the man's eyes slowly glazed over, gaining a glassy look, appearing eerily unseeing- with a bizarre sense of awe and fascination. He wondered what this meant._

_He poked the man lightly with the handle of a kunai, but he did not stir._

_He had frowned, why wasn't the man responding? Weren't his eyes still open?_

_"He's dead." He heard a pained voice behind him say._

_Dead...what exactly did that mean?_

_-I just wanted him to shut up...-_

_An injured ninja, the forehead protector with the symbol of Konoha carved into it tied around his forehead, clad in the regulation ninja uniform. Dark red liquid had soaked through his chuunin vest._

_The image of the young man shifted and morphed, till the he was no longer sprawled on the ground, weak and injured, but standing tall, his dark hair in a pony tail. He was clad in the same ninja uniform, only now it was free of blood._

_A memory._

Naruto watched as the man disengaged from a friendly conversation with a passing kunoichi, the same sinking feeling growing in him, as the man turned to regard him. Like a leaden knell, he watched as the man's expression metamorphosed into the one of cold apathy he had seen so many times before. He remembered the striking, red and white symbol on the man's flak jacket, shaped like a fan.

He would try, anyway.

"Please mister, do you know the way-" The words died in his throat as the man walked past him, brushing him aside. The sting of the rejection shocked him, and he stood there, in the middle of the busy street, the tide of humanity flowing around him, lost and alone.

_-Alone...-_

_Now, his eyes viewed the man with a cold calculation._

_The man begged him, gesticulating wildly, to go. Go where, he did not understand initially._

_"Go get help..." _

_The man tried to speak, his words evidently slurred by the blood filling his throat. _

_"Help...? Help you?"_

_He said the words slowly, as though tasting a foreign notion._

_Somewhere in his mind, he registered the fact that if this man was not tended to, he would end up in the same state as the enemy ninja he had been fighting against him. He would die._

_He would be gone from this world...forever._

_He sat down, on a fallen log, in front of the man, almost casually. Curiously, he noted absently, the wound in his side didn't seem to be hurting so much anymore._

_It was his turn to be apathetic._

_He sat there for a long, long time. _

_He sat there; he watched as the man's panic escalated, as the man's pleadings turned to threats, then faded back into desperate grovellings, as the man's expressions grew more and more frenzied, his babbling becoming incoherent, drool leaked out from his mouth, along with blood. Internal bleeding, he thought, cataloging the man's symptoms._

_He watched the chuunin flail and thrash around on the ground uselessly, like a wounded animal, the perceptible insane desperation radiating from him._

_He sat there and watched with a frigid nonchalance as the man's breaths got shallower and shallower, the gesticulating hand slackening, losing its energy._

_The chuunin's eyes remained defiantly open. With a sort of morbid fascination, he watched as the light slowly faded from them, the dark irises beginning to glaze over, like a candle being snuffed out. He watched, as the man managed to hurl a last strangled curse from his blood-filled throat._

_"Monster..."_

_He did not flinch at the disgust and loathing with which the word was spat out. _

_He smiled faintly. _

_"I suppose you must be right, Uchiha-san."_

_He focused on embracing the surreal numbness that had started from the tips of his fingers and then spread, allowing the chill to take over his whole body._

_It was the sight of one blood-covered Uzumaki Naruto calmly sitting on a log in front of a dead Konoha chuunin, an eerily placid expression on his face, that the two Konoha ANBU scouts who found him happened upon. _

_It was with even more unease that they realized that the Kyuubi container's body was completely bereft of a single wound._

_

* * *

_

It had taken awhile to wash off all the blood on his clothes. The blood had dried and congealed, requiring copious amounts of hot water and detergent to get out, leaving his hands with a strong, coppery smell.

He did this all with a strange feeling of calmness, wringing the washed clothes to dry, then stepping into the shower himself to wash off the blood that had been caked into his hair and splattered onto his face.

The image of his hand, the hand clutching the kunai as it stabbed into the pulsing, throbbing veins in the man's neck filled his mind with stunning clarity.

The sanguine liquid spurting out of the man's flesh, the brief, tumultuous to fight to hang on to life, to fight off his mortality, before he eventually succumbed to it.

The consuming fear and terror in his eyes, when he realized he could do nothing to avert his impending doom.

The begging, the pleading for his life. The addictive, intoxicating feeling of power over the same man who had once pushed him aside on the street.

The role reversal struck him as being almost poetically ironic.

Something like karmic retribution, he supposed.

Now, that was an interesting concept. They had said he it was his retribution, that it was now his turn, one of the varying justifications for their stigmatization, for their mistreatment of him. They called it karma. Retribution. That was a long word.

It rolled off his tongue easily, nonetheless.

It meant that he deserved it. Deserved the cold glares, the hurtful words, in return for some fictitious transgression he had committed.

* * *

_"He's dead..." The animal mask of a Konoha ANBU filled his vision, the stylized red swirls contrasting starkly with the pure white porcelain._

Dead...

Die....

To lie bleeding on the ground, babbling unintelligible words, as the lifeforce slowly seeped out of you.

To _die _for Konoha?

Was that what it meant? The abstract concept fleshed out in reality?

The old man spoke of it nobly, lionized it as a most honorable act in the life of a ninja.

He let out a short laugh, a spiteful one.

He conceded that perhaps there was some sort of nobility to die in such a manner, to die protecting something you treasured.

_"Why should I die for Konoha?"_

However, he now knew more then ever that he did not, and never would see any worth in doing so.

_Sorry old man. _

What did they get out of it, all those brave heroes that died for their beloved Konoha? To lie forgotten, near-death, bleeding, beaten up and dirty on the ground, your final moments in pain, all alone? A funeral where everyone wore a somber face and muttered grave eulogies and testaments as a tribute to your honorable sacrifice? A tiny inscription of your name on some stupid stone the old man had told him about, just one more out of the hundreds of others?

He supposed, this illogical thinking was considerably easier for other people to justify.

After all, Other People were not shunned, nor were they treated with abject coldness and unfriendliness by the fellow villagers. They could probably find something worth protecting- to the extent of giving up their lives.

He scoffed, as he doodled absent-mindedly on his notepaper, letting the annoying drone of the Academy teacher rambling on about the history of the Third Secret Ninja Wars diminish into a meaningless hum.

Other People, he remembered, were also impossibly stupid idiots and fools.

* * *

The many chuunin instructors at the Academy who had been multiple victims of the infernal Kyuubi no Yoko's pranks had initially welcomed the respite from being subject to said demon's machinations.

Perhaps, they thought sneeringly, the disgusting demon had finally gotten sense knocked into his head. Perhaps, he-no_, it _had finally realized that it would never get the kind of attention he craved with his idiocy.

The silent, quiet version of the normally raucous blond boy proved to be an unnerving presence in the classroom, however.

They fidgeted, squirmed uncomfortably, mulling over this new situation. It ate at them, gnawed at their consciousness constantly.

Deep down, they knew why.

The swirling rumors about the blond boy taking down a jounin-level ninja all by himself, being responsible for the untimely death of Uchiha Shisui could easily have been laughed off in the past.

The new visage the Kyuubi no Yoko presented everyday seemed to give these rumours more credence. The coldness of his blue eyes, the expressionless facade of his face made it believable. It all fitted the image of a remorseless killer and played hell with their imaginations.

It ought not to have to have been terribly disturbing, after all, was this not a ninja village? Konoha ANBU and jounin performed the very same chilling acts the Kyuubi no Yoko had been reputed to have done on a daily basis.

Yet, it disturbed them deeply.

The Kyuubi no Yoko was supposed to have been locked in a human body, conscious but powerless, for them to be able to kick around, to abuse, to mock, knowing they could get away with it. The demon was after all, unable to manifest even a shred of its magnificent, terrifying true form that they had faced on that night six years earlier.

It was powerless, weak, at a disadvantage. Limited by the Sandaime's and the Council's decree, all they could do was at most verbally and psychologically attack the monster.

It thought it could garner sympathy by wearing the form of a child, wearing the face of the Yondaime, but Konoha ninja were not so easily tricked. In response, it got upset, it cried. It was almost convincing. Sometimes, they wondered whether the demon fox was just faking it.

Nevertheless, it was a sense of victory that they were able to hurt this malevolent monster, in this form, where it was reduced from its god-like power to barely a shadow of its former glory. It gave them a sense of might; of vindication against the demon that had stolen so much from them six years ago.

They relished the role reversal, from being the helpless little insects that had been simply squashed by the monstrous demon, or flicked aside like flies, to being in a position to be able to torment the demon in return.

They were unwilling to relinquish this position of control, of superiority.

Every little proficiency the blond boy showed of the ninja arts at the Academy worried, concerned them.

Every thud of yet another bull's eye scored by the boy on the target range, every perfect, fast and efficient handseal, every simple jutsu mastered fed into their accumulating paranoia.

For they feared the Kyuubi no Yoko would one day find a way to beat them at their own game. Or they feared that they had been fooled, that all this while, the Demon Fox had been pulling the strings, manipulating their unsuspecting selves like an expert puppeteer. Lulling them into a false sense of dominance and security, maneuvering them into the right position, just waiting quietly in the shadows for the right time to ambush them. To raise a knife to slash their throats when they least suspected it.

_Because fox spirits were cunning tricksters, weren't they?_

Like it was a predator stalking its prey, making them run in circles, before finally cornering them into a final trap.

Like it was just a game.

* * *

None of the changes in their attitudes had gone unnoticed.

To Uzumaki Naruto, watching them shake and tremble at the completely non-existent illusions they held of his power was hysterically funny.

He had let out an audible snicker, which soon turned into full-blown laughter. He laughed, unable to stop himself, completely oblivious to the curious eyes of his fellow classmates or the more nervous ones of Iruka who had stopped mid-way through his recantation of the battles between Konoha and Iwa during the Third Secret Ninja War.

Iruka shifted uncomfortably at the sight of the wide grin that had spread across _that boy'_s face, unwilling to make a move to reprimand him. He instead waited agonizingly for the Demon Fox to tire, for his laughter to subside into snickers, so that the queasy feeling that had been stirred in the pit of his stomach would recede for the timebeing, and he could continue the lesson.

The other children tittered curiously, wanting to know what the joke was.

The same nauseating feeling rose up once more, when he confiscated the piece of paper the Demon Fox had been sketching on (and thus evidently not paying attention in class).

The dark strokes of the pencil were drawn almost haphazardly, but Iruka could easily form out of the seemingly amorphous shape of sketch lines the narrow, slanted, animalistic-looking eyes. The sharp rows of teeth, the vicious-looking snout, the ears protruding from its head.

Overall, it bore a very close resemblance to the head of a fox. A demon fox. To be precise, an uncomfortably close resemblance to the Kyuubi no Yoko itself. It was disturbingly life-like.

Iruka shuddered innately.

Behind him, the slight frown was the only outward sign of the annoyance Naruto felt at this blatant thievery.

After all, in his opinion, that had been an awfully good sketch of the dog mask belonging to that ANBU captain he had encountered. He might not be able to draw another as well as that one again.

* * *

"Are you sure?" The Sandaime asked gravely, his voice weary.

"Yes."

The lone light from a flickering bulb cast shadows upon the white of the porcelain animal masks the two ninja kneeling in front of him wore over their faces. Clad in the signature light armor and sporting the spiral tattoo on their bicep that identified them as the elite Konoha ANBU, they replied an affirmative.

"It was undeniably...the same as the one we felt...on that night." The Dog-masked captain ventured uncomfortably.

"_Unmistakably_." The other ANBU, this one with a feline mask backed up.

The captain shifted uncomfortably, "The degree of it...was a lot less, but nonetheless, we could tell it was different from usual."

The captain watched as the Sandaime's face turned grim, as he considered the ramifications of what they had just reported to their superior.

"Very well. Continue to keep an eye out for any such future occurrences."

The two elite ninja nodded in assent.

"You two are dismissed."

Shouldering his katana, Hatake Kakashi left the room, knowing he and Tenzou had to return to their night patrols and to relieve the two ANBU they had had cover them.

Atop the roof, he gazed down at the Village of the Hidden Leaf. The full moon was out tonight. The atmosphere was one of calm, of absolute stillness, not even the slightest wind.

It made him feel uneasy. Perhaps because it reminded him too much of the night the Kyuubi had attacked Konoha...and of that episode just two nights ago...

_"Ah...what's up? Such a lively night..." The ANBU forced himself to ignore the unnerving smile of the Kyuubi container. He calmly recited in his head the description of the boy he had read in his file as a reassurance to himself. The boy was known to be somewhat of a prankster, he often didn't pay attention in class- more or less the description of a normal child._

_"You are Konoha ANBU, aren't you?" The blond boy asked, still smiling, "Old man told me you all are this really elite squad under his command."_

_"Did the old man send you...? I wonder why..." The boy's questions, the casual, inflectionless tone seemed somewhat off-putting for a reason he could not identify. _

_Kakashi pondered if he should inform the boy that he and Tenzou had only come across him by chance._

_"Heh..." The six-year old snickered, before the older ninja could reply. The two ANBU stiffened at the sudden change in atmosphere, reflexively gripping the standard-issue katana strapped to their backs._

_"Does the old man see me as a threat now...ANBU-san? I'm flattered..." Kakashi's eyes narrowed behind his dog mask._

_"Heh...heh...ha ha..." The boy's snickers soon morphed into full-blown laughter, which sent the two elite ninja instinctively taking offensive stances._

_This feeling... He saw that Tenzou had felt the same. Kakashi felt his hair standing on its end._

_It was a sickening feeling, a choking sensation. It was an effort to breathe. The chakra, roiling of pure malice seemed to cloud them, to cloak them in a thick fog._

_When the boy finally stopped laughing, he had then rattled off what was on their minds...  
_

Alone in the meeting room, poring over the report, and turning over the words of his two ANBU in his mind, Sarutobi's brows knotted with worry.

If what Kakashi and Tenzou had reported was true, it did not bode well for Naruto, nor for the Hidden Leaf.

What's happened to you, Naruto?

Have you...been pushed too far? Beyond the point of no return?

_-That night, the chakra I felt from Naruto was the same one I felt from six years ago...the chakra of the Kyuubi no Yoko. _

_It was definitely a lot weaker, the killing intent was barely discernible, but it was unmistakable. It was the chakra of the Kyuubi._

_He was laughing, Hokage-sama._

_He seemed almost hysterical...crazed..._

_"Why so keen for a fight...? Do you think I am a monster? A monster, sitting here, plotting how to destroy your precious KONOHA?"-_

_

* * *

_

It was all one grand design, an elegantly crafted masterpiece of supreme irony and dark humor.

The incident that night, where the container of the Demon Fox had killed an intruder and then left a Leaf chuunin to die had been hastily, but well-covered up by the Sandaime from the general public. The old Hokage knew that Danzou would be somewhere, waiting for his chance, and Sarutobi had no intention of ever giving him one.

In any case, it was impossible for the incident to remain a complete secret. Many villagers and Konoha ninja had seen the Kyuubi no Yoko walking down the street, splattered with blood- _someone else_'s blood- a maniacal grin on his face.

And so the whispers and rumors multiplied rapidly, like flies and maggots teeming on a rotting carcass.

The seeds of doubt and prejudice that had already been sown a long time ago now bloomed with a vengeance, the flames of mistrust only further fanned.

_The Kyuubi no Yoko had obviously taken over the boy- the boy had managed to take down a jounin intruder into the village single-handedly._

_Heh. You're wrong. The Kyuubi has been in control from the very beginning- the boy and the demon fox are one and the same. Only now it seems, the Fox is able to channel more of its powers into the human medium it's trapped in. How long will it be before the Kyuubi finds away to let loose its full power?_

_Those morons in the Council aren't doing anything to let Sandaime-sama see the error of his ways. The boy- no the Kyuubi, obviously can't be trusted._

_He's a danger to the village..._

_Shouldn't it have been clear from the very beginning? The Nine-Tails was playing games with us all...that face, the Yondaime's face it wears, all part of its perverse joke._

Dark thoughts swirled in the heads of many Konoha ninja.

_I don't like this at all,_ they muttered.

Indeed, the villagers of the Hidden Leaf did not like this at all.

It was uncomfortable, unsettling, to go from being the tormentor to the tormented.

From the hunter to the hunted.

-

-

Somewhere, the Kyuubi no Yoko was laughing.

* * *

**A/N: Wow, thank you for all your generous reviews! I swear, I'm a reviews junkie. It's really nice to hear what people think about your work, to have it appreciated. It really motivates writers to write more (:**

**So please read and review! **

**This story originally started out as a one-shot, a kind of experiment, but I'm finding a wealth of inspiration for it, you see. I know it's been a bit unclear, but it's meant to be a kind of an alternate universe. Actually, the original manga, I feel, is pretty realistic too. Kishi portrayed Naruto as hating people when he was a young boy- the only reason he changed was because Iruka acknowledged him. So, in chapter one, on that fateful night, at the ramen stand where in my story he would have met Iruka face to face for the first time, that doesn't happen. The result is that Naruto turns out to be a whole different person, and Iruka doesn't see beyond the Kyuubi.**

**There are a few levels to this. Clearly Naruto has adopted a frightening sort of mindset now. Yet, at the same time, he's actually relishing playing mind games with all of the Konoha villagers. So sometimes he's acting or exaggerating, other times, the little things he does that he doesn't intend to mean anything get lapped up by the villagers all the same as another sign of the Kyuubi- such as his drawing of the ANBU mask and his playing of pranks previously being interpreted differently by people.**

**And so with the conclusion of chapter 3, to put it in an extremely cliche term: the plot thickens! Naruto awakens the Kyuubi! Oh noes! The Konoha villagers better watch out.**

**(Naruto still doesn't know about the Kyuubi, though, to clarify.)**

**EDIT 4/12/09 Thanks for the heads up, I must've accidentally replaced this chapter with chapter 4 which explained the double chapters.  
**

* * *


	4. Subduing the Beast

* * *

**_Monster_**

_

* * *

_

_It was in the middle of the night, for goodness' sakes. A quick glance at the glowing hands of the clock on his bedside table revealed that it was two thirty in the morning._

_Who the heck was the moron who thought it a good idea to come visiting at this hour? _

_He let out a few incoherent curses as he trudged towards the main door. His sleepy mind faintly noted the umbrella nearby which he could use as a makeshift club should the person behind the door have less-than benign intentions._

_He opened the door with a yawn, and then his sleepy eyes fell upon the shadowed figure standing outside his door._

_It was startling how quickly one could shift from being deeply immersed in the deep fogs of sleep in his barely-awake state to being completely alert; a sensation that felt akin to having a bucket of ice-cold water thrown into one's face. _

_He grumbled inwardly. He would not be going back to sleep anytime soon._

* * *

**_Four_**

_**Subduing the Beast  
**_

**_

* * *

_**

_...So that was it, eh?_

_A sneer of utmost disgust._

_Those old coots thought it unimaginably clever of themselves, I imagine. _

_Hmph. They've never changed, though I must say I am a little surprised that Sandaime-sama decided to do such a thing._

_A chuckle. _

_You don't know that old man, he may look senile sometimes, but he's still sharp. He's got the ruthlessness in him._

_Red eyes narrowing._

_..So we never got to see the body of the intruder?_

_A hollow laugh._

_If there was even one, to begin with._

_It is infinitely clear that their story is just ruse. And they know it._

_They had Shisui assassinated. They probably just used the Kyuubi container to do their dirty work for them. Easiest way to do it, even if it's messy. They can blame everything on the boy just losing control. According to them, Shisui just happened to be at the wrong place, at the wrong time._

_This does not bode well for us. How could they possibly have found out? _

_Let us not jump to conclusions. We had yet to make a move. They might not have found out our...plan, but I find it likely they blame the Kyuubi boy's strange behavior on us. They suspect it is we who are manipulating him, perhaps. If that is even possible._

_They still blame us for the Nine-tails' attack six -well now almost seven- years ago, eh? Even when several of our clan members died fighting the Fox?_

_They're ones all too willing to find scapegoats. Shisui's death is likely just a threat, a warning to us._

_But we will not take this quietly._

_Coal black eyes narrowed. _

_That is right...Fugaku. It is about time we evened the odds a little..._

_A widening smile._

_That boy...your older son. He shows promise, does he not?_

_...Indeed he does._

_Very well...he will make a magnificent tool for the Uchiha clan.

* * *

_

It wasn't even a drawing of the Nine-tails, Iruka tried to convince himself. It was just him projecting his paranoia onto the drawing his student had decided to make of some mammal, and visualizing it to be the Kyuubi.

Still, he was unable to control the wandering of his thoughts.

The fox was grinning at him from the mass of pencil strokes, eyes seeming to glow demonically from the crumpled piece of rough paper. The wide, mocking grin and the slanted eyes seemed to draw him in, almost hypnotically. The fox seemed to rise, up, to take shape, to fully materialize-

He shivered.

Abruptly, he snapped out of his reverie, feeling foolish.

It was only a damned _sketch _of the fox, heck, he couldn't even be sure it _was _the fox, even if there was a rather uncanny resemblance, he reminded himself forcefully.

Even then, at most, it was just a two-dimensional _drawing _of the fox's face, it was nothing like the monstrous, flesh-and-blood beast that had towered over them on that night, its nine tails silhouetted against the full moon.

The Kyuubi's eyes were blank, with no pupils or irises drawn in. Iruka thought it best to convince himself that the boy simply had not had time to pencil them in before he had confiscated the paper.

It was after all, a considerably more reassuring explanation- rather than thinking the boy had wanted to create the effect of the demon's eyes glowing evilly.

He sighed tiredly, tearing his gaze away from the drawing. He felt an unbearable sense of aggravation, he felt like hitting something. It came to him faintly that that something was the boy's face. To wipe off that maniacal expression on his face, when he was undergoing one of his inexplicable laughing fits; that fox-like grin that was so uncomfortably reminiscent of the Kyuubi no Yoko.

That thought surprised him, as much as it shook him.

He did not think himself to be a temperamental person. His attitude towards the boy was mixed, to be honest. He would be lying if he said he outright hated the boy with the kind of vehemence many of his fellow ninja possessed. He could not help feel a slight twinge of pity sometimes, at how lonely the young blond seemed to look during his lessons.

He knew the boy lived by himself- the Sandaime had not been able to find anyone willing to adopt what many regarded as the living manifestation of the monster that had attacked Konoha six- now almost seven- years ago. On some level he felt he had been able to empathize with him; he too, had lost his parents.

Iruka remembered the faraway look that he would sometimes see in the young boy's cerulean eyes, how those eyes sometimes looked too old to be on a child's face. They seemed to look almost...sad. Many a time, he had wondered what Naruto had been thinking.

However...

That flash of intelligence so deep and profound in those blue eyes, the knowing look that just spoke volumes that the boy _knew_. Those cheery grins which sometimes seemed a little _too _fox-like for his taste, the way those smiles sometimes seemed a little fake, almost pasted on.

Plastered on, a facade to conceal_ something else_. _That _set him on the edge.

His immediate assumption was that it concealed the seething malevolence that was the Nine-tails. That was why though he sometimes felt himself pitying the boy, he could never shake off the apprehension that seemed to beset him in the boy's presence.

Recently, with the boy's strange behavior, it had become increasingly harder not to see the Nine-tails in the boy's shadow.

He himself had believed that the Yondaime's sealing had been flawless- the demon fox and the boy were not one and the same. He knew many of his contemporaries, however, did not believe so.

_If he was just some child they managed to get to seal the fox, why does he have the face of Yondaime-sama, then? _He remembered Mizuki, a fellow chuunin asking him accusatorily.

_Can't you see it, Iruka? He's laughing at us, that's what. Making it one grand joke. _

With every passing day, his faith in the security of the Yondaime's sealing seemed to erode a little. With every day, Mizuki's words became just a little more convincing.

With every passing day, the silhouette of the monster fox he could see in Naruto's shadow seemed to grow larger and larger.

He wondered if one day, it would fully eclipse the boy himself.

He found his eyes returning to the crumpled piece of paper sitting atop his desk. The Kyuubi smiled back.

The feeling of aggravation would not go away, it seemed to hang around the room like cigarette smoke, tangible and heavy. He hated this.

He despised it, this feeling. The feeling of insecurity taking root inside him, the seeds planted long ago finally germinating. He hated the reminder of how when he went home every night, his parents were not there. The pain had yet to fully dull even after almost seven years.

Most of all, he hated it how the demon fox still continued to haunt him, how although it was supposed to be sealed, supposed to be gone from this plane of reality.

A familiar, queasy feeling rose in the pit of his stomach.

A small part of him tried to convince him it was not even a drawing of the fox. He was imagining things, reading too much into it.

He tried to listen to that part of him. Even if it was the fox, it didn't _have _to mean anything. The boy might've just felt like drawing it, after hearing stories of how the Yondaime had courageously killed the demon.

Still, he wondered if the boy _knew_.

If...he had finally put two and two together, if he had finally figured _everything _out.

He was aware that some of his fellow colleagues hadn't exactly been discreet about airing the reason they held such grievances against Naruto. Was it _his _fault too? Did the boy notice his apprehension around him? Heard the couple of times he had discussed the the Kyuubi?

The ramifications were not pleasant.

An image of the Sandaime's face, serious, dark eyes cold as he laid down the strict rules of his decree down came to his mind.

He sighed, trying to shut off that train of thought he was tempted to wander down.

_Or perhaps, all along, all this while, it had been in control. _

No matter how hard he tried, the drawing was still on his mind.

_Just like the Kyuubi, huh? Even when it's gone from this plane of existence, it's still controlling and manipulating everything._

Iruka folded up the drawing and shoved it into one of his desk drawers, under a large pile of scrolls and paperwork, where it would be out of sight, and he would hopefully be able to forget all about it.

* * *

And so that was how Iruka went on with his life. He had succeeded in forgetting that thought-provoking drawing for hours on end, even when he saw Naruto.

It became so much easier, he realized, as he walked into the classroom to begin the lesson the next day at the Ninja Academy, when he stopped trying to see the hulking form of the monster fox in the boy's shadow.

That expressionless face was one of boredom, not that of a remorseless killer, a monster. The stormy blue eyes were no more than a result of the boy being in an irritable mood; perhaps he had not gotten enough sleep- instead of hiding insidious plots of murder and revenge. The fits of delirious laughter the boy had were nothing more than harmless eccentricities, not the maniacal guffaws of the immortal Kyuubi snickering at how easy it was to manipulate the lowly mortals he was surrounded by.

In any case, if one ignored the whispered rumors about the blond, the boy seemed almost perfectly harmless. Just rather anti-social and eccentric. Iruka had heard fellow colleagues heatedly discussing the rumors that Naruto had killed an Uchiha and a jounin-level ninja with his bare hands, how the boy was finally showing his true self; the face of the Kyuubi no Kitsune. Involuntarily, that hovering suspicion was unable to be completely dispelled from his mind, but it was so much easier to dismiss them as being ridiculous. All he had to do was flash back the blond's report card.

His practical skills were slightly above average, the boy had good aim, he was proficient enough in mastering the basic jutsu taught at the Academy, but nothing spectacular, nothing that showed an off-the-charts genius like Uchiha Itachi.

Iruka had not taught Itachi, but he knew Mitsuki practically worshipped the ground the young Uchiha walked on; she and the other Academy instructors who taught Itachi declared him a prodigy of the highest caliber, a once-in-a-generation genius on the level of the deceased Yondaime and Orochimaru (though most of them shied away from _that _comparison; Orochimaru was as of now, still a dangerous missing-nin).

They gushed with a sort of fanatical eagerness about the boy's accomplishments in a manner that rather unnerved Iruka, but suffice to say, Naruto would have to be on a level like Itachi to even have been able to take down two experienced ninja at such a young age.

The part of him that was most quintessentially a ninja, that questioned everything and anything had retorted _maybe he's just hiding his true strength, haven't you ever considered that? Something that most ninja do? _

He smothered that line of thought before it could go any further; all these years, and the blond had yet to show a real indication that he was more powerful than he let on, discounting those rumors that could not even be confirmed, anyway.

Also, the boy's written tests scored abysmally; his answers did not seem to reveal the keen intellect of a child genius, or someone who had the mental capacity beyond his years- as ought to be the case with a thousand-over year old demon. That thought was another source of solace.

It was comforting enough to reassure himself that the Kyuubi was just like the non-existent bogey-man children were convinced hid under their beds every night, waiting to get them. A product, a creation of their paranoia. Nothing more, nothing less.

It was a sort of self-denial, Iruka admitted, but one he could live with.

After all, it made it considerably easier for him to meet those blue eyes without flinching or having images of the Kyuubi's attack on Konoha running through his mind. He idly wondered why he didn't do it all these years; it definitely made him less anxious and worried.

* * *

Naruto didn't show up for class the next morning.

Iruka's immediate assumption was that the boy was playing truant.

That was his presumption because had begun to notice a disturbing trend in Naruto's behavior.

The young boy seemed to care less and less for the lessons in the Ninja Academy. He had increasingly been developing the annoying habit of sleeping through his lectures. Iruka couldn't help but feel his veins bulging at the sight of the whiskered blond's face resting atop his desk, his eyes shut.

Even when sleeping, the boy's peaceful expression seemed to be mocking him._ The nerve of that brat!_

Where Naruto once- he had to admit- did his homework rather meticulously, the boy now consistently failed to hand in assigned homework on time. When nagged and pushed enough for a particular piece of work, (coupled with threats of detention) the boy would grudgingly produce the crumpled assignment a few days later. It did not make much of a difference- on the rare occasions he handed up his homework, they would be messy, half-hearted and carelessly done.

Many of the Academy instructors had opined that that miserable demon probably didn't know how to do the questions. They said it with a smirk and a satisfied snigger, another small and petty victory over the bane of their existence.

Iruka personally wondered how the human minds were capable of such ridiculous dislocations; these very same people were thoroughly assured that the blond and the Demon Fox were one and the same, simply biding its time. It was, in their opinion, just lying in wait, while relishing rubbing the fact that it was allowed to walk around freely in their faces, the cunning, fox-like grin baring the slightest glimpse of the shadowy schemes it was consistently plotting. Yet they somehow were able to convince themselves that the reincarnation of a powerful, thousand-over year old demon would not know how to do simple jutsu theory questions.

To Iruka, it was obvious Naruto simply refused to put in any real effort into his assignments.

He sensed that it was not so much that the boy found the work much too tiresome and annoying to deal with, and couldn't be bothered to struggle through them. The flash of intelligence in those blue eyes; he knew that the boy was smarter than he let on. He could not quite explain it, but it seemed to him as simply a part of the boy's rebellion against what he viewed was the established authority.

An established authority that had treated him badly, he had to admit.

They were the teachers, he was the student. The Academy teachers assigned homework that the children were all obliged to do, he refused. He suspected that the boy's recent penchant for sleeping through his classes was simply another way of expressing his disrespect. Somehow, the boy felt a need to show his disdain to them, supposedly his superiors with authority over him.

His _disdain_.

Continuing on that line of thought as to the boy's motives, he wondered if the boy was simply extending his rebellion against what must be the villainous establishment in his eyes by playing truant.

He shook himself out of his musings, he had other things to concentrate on and everything was pure speculation on his part.

He smiled as the gaggle of children entered the classroom noisily for the next lesson, filing in in twos and threes, chatting animatedly.

These children were the future pillars of the Hidden Leaf, he could not help but think with a warm smile. One day, some of these children- he looked at their young faces, still pudgy with baby fat, the bright, excited eyes- would be the next generation of legends, powerful ninja in their own right.

Many other teachers had been in his position, hadn't they? He wondered, at the teacher that had taught the young Yondaime, had he or she, standing in front of the class, been able to see in that young face the legend he would become?

Had he or she seen the monster, the S-ranked missing-nin that the young Orochimaru would become? Had there been anything in his face that offered a glimpse of the future?

His eyes swept the class, looking at the different children, but inevitably, returning to the empty seat on the second row. Naruto's seat.

Like a recurring nightmare, the drawing of the Kyuubi came back to his mind.

* * *

_He decided he did not like this man's face; predatory-looking expression on his aged countenance, the narrow face, the beady, calculating look in the single revealed eye- the other was covered in some sort of bandage, the crude, slashed cross scar the man wore on his chin almost proudly, like a badge of honor._

_Calculating his worth, assessing how he might be of use to his plans. How he might make a good pawn. _

_He wanted nothing more than to cut him down, to rip his face apart, into bloody ribbons. _

_"You're lucky, boy." A dry chuckle, interrupting his violent hallucinations._

_The degree of animosity he immediately felt towards the man surprised him._

_No, he did not fear this man. _

_What he hated about him was the self-assured air around him. The air that he wore, that he controlled anything and everything. The unshakeable belief that he could bend anyone to his will._

_"I am?" He asked blandly, "I could hardly tell," he scoffed._

_He simply refused. He answered to no one. He was not about to be controlled by anyone, to become anyone's tool for their own liking. _

_A small, mocking voice asked him if it looked liked he had any choice to begin with._

_The woman, her white hair pulled back tightly into a bun, held in place with a simple hair stick frowned heavily in disapproval. The way she wore her hair was a perfect metaphor for her general disposition, he realized. Stiff, unmoving and almost overtly wary of appearing too comfortable, she affected a no-nonsense demeanor. _

_"You should not speak too carelessly, Uzumaki Naruto." She pursed her lips, like a matriarch reprimanding a particularly offending grandson. There was nothing vaguely familial in her countenance, however._

_She interlocked her fingers, studying him critically. "Do not have the impression that you have a choice in this matter, nor that you are in a position to negotiate."_

_He smirked, baring a sharp canine, "You needn't tell me that, old lady." _

_The woman almost smiled, "You have neither respect nor discipline, whatsoever, Uzumaki. It looks like it is one other thing you shall have to learn." _

_He was beginning to be irritated by the stupid games they were playing. _

_"So...what have you come to tell me? That my pitiful life is now yours to use?" _

_"In a manner of speaking, boy. As I was saying, you are lucky indeed. If it were not for the Nine-tails sealed within you, you would not be so fortunate."_

_Though he had heard this fact already, twelve hours ago, the shock of hearing it had yet to wear off._

_So surreal. _

_"You're the container of the Kyuubi no Yoko that attacked the village seven years ago."_

_Short, peremptory, with no warning about the enormity of the news that was about to be revealed to him, other than a "Naruto, it's time you were told the truth" from old man Sandaime. He remembered the strange sense of calm he had. _

_His first thought was confusion. What did it mean? Was he the Kyuubi itself? What did they mean by the Fox being inside of him? _

_They had been patient, and they answered all his questions._

_The anger would come much later. Then just a feeling of resignation, an acceptance of it._

_Perhaps because all he had been searching for all along was also an answer. An answer as to who he truly was, the secret of his birth. Perhaps because finally he knew why everyone hated him. Why he healed so quickly. Why everybody called him a demon._

_Why everybody started to fear him so easily, why they were so uneasy when he said he wouldn't die for the Hidden Leaf._

_They couldn't see beyond the long shadow of the Kyuubi no Yoko, the Sandaime had said sadly. _

_That's just nice than. He had no intention of coming out from under it. _

_...Why bother?_

_A strange, forlorn ache in his heart._

_"...If I did not have the Fox within me, my life would not even have played out this way."_

_Perhaps he would have had parents. Perhaps he would just be a normal, innocent child, still oblivious to the evils of this world. _

_He firmly shut off that line of thought before it could go further._

_All this while, his destiny had been controlled from the very beginning. His life was but a mere pawn, a mere piece in someone's larger game._

_He sighed, irritated. He had gotten careless, gotten himself trapped into a box, to being the manipulated, instead of the manipulator._

_His eyes hardened._

_It was no matter. He could take advantage of this situation._

_He would regain control once more. _

_And now his eyes returned to meet the old man's single visible eye. _

_"You would have been killed or severely disciplined, at the very least and stripped of your right to become a ninja, for that incident on that night. Even though you are a child, but considering what you harbor within you. If it weren't for the fact that we recognize your enormous potential." The man evidently thought he ought to spell out to him his utmost generosity._

_Enormous potential? They were talking about the power of the Nine-tails. Not his own power. That thought did not sit well with him, but he forced his expression to remain one of indifference._

_"...So old man Sandaime allowed all of this?" A slight twinge of something. He felt almost betrayed. The Sandaime had been the only person he had been able to come closest to trusting, and yet he had thrown him to the sharks. Figuratively._

_"Ho. He was hardly keen on doing this, boy, but he recognized there was no other way." The man's smile was predatory._

_"...It looks like I have no choice then." He bowed his head, acquiescing. He would give them some degree of respect for now._

* * *

"Why the expression, Sarutobi?"

The old Hokage's dark eyes were cold as he regarded Homura.

"I fear that you lot do not know what you are doing." He did not mince his words, "I do not like this situation at all, and the only reason I agreed was because there seems to be no other option."

"Getting sentimental, teammate?"

"Heh. I will admit you got me there, Homura. But that is not the only reason. There are so many unknowns in this equation. I have to admit, I myself cannot be sure where his loyalties lie."

Through his glasses, the Council Elder eyed the Sandaime, "The boy is still young, he is not fully formed yet. We can shape and mold him to our liking."

"And if you are unable to do that? We are playing with fire."

Homura stiffened, "Sarutobi, our duty is to make decisions that will uphold and protect the strength of the Hidden Leaf. And I see it as killing two birds with one stone. We should turn a weakness into a strength. A threat to us to a trump card."

The Sandaime smiled thinly.

"That works very well so long as you are talking about inanimate objects. Not human beings. You'd best tread carefully, friend."

* * *

That next day, Umino Iruka received a short, official notice that Uzumaki Naruto was hereby no longer enrolled in the Ninja Academy, and had been stripped of his right to become a ninja by the Hokage and Village Council, likely indefinitely.

The news spread quickly, and many cheered that their leaders had finally seen the light. No doubt, the boy had stepped on some very important toes, and it was now coming back to haunt him. Many suggested that the rumored incident where the Kyuubi boy was allegedly involved the death of an Uchiha clan member had indeed had some credence.

Holding aloof from the hubbub engulfing the village, twelve-year old Uchiha Itachi was dealing with an inner turmoil of his own. His young face was one of consternation as he studied the slip of paper in his hand.

An application to join the _Konoha Ansatsu Senjustu Tokushu Butai_.

The Konoha ANBU.

* * *

** Ansatsu Senjustu Tokushu Butai- It means roughly "Special Tactics and Assassination Squad". It's the full name of the ANBU, which is just an abbreviation, taken from the "An" in Ansatsu, and the "Bu" in Butai. "Anbu" Itself, rather ominously, means Dark Side.  
**

**And that's it for chapter four! Yes, I'm sorry it took quite a long while, but I had to rewrite it till it came out right, plus real life caught up with me too. It's a longer chapter, though (: **

**Please read and review!**

_

* * *

_


	5. Hollow

**Here's chapter five, guys. There are some spoilers from manga chapter 400 onwards, especially with regards to the Uchiha clan, though it shouldn't be much of an issue since the manga's now almost at 450.  
**

* * *

**Monster**

* * *

_His whole body seemed to be on fire. The muscles and tendons in his body ached so painfully they seemed to be alight; he reckoned his bones hurt too. His lungs wheezed excruciatingly, his throat agonizingly dry and parched, begging madly for some precious water to satisfy his thirst._

_His breaths came out in ragged gasps that he was sure made him look like a fish out of water. His heart was pumping rapidly, fighting to keep him going. _

_He felt as though he were about to die._

_He never knew a body could feel this tired, this drained of energy. He was sure the pulsating organ in his chest would give out anytime soon. He wondered whether he really would die this time; how far did the Kyuubi's powers of regeneration go?_

_He wasn't thinking about anything else other than the feeling of the grueling sun beating down on his back, the sweat gathered on his face, tricking down his brow, the weariness of his body._

_How easy and tempting it was to run to the shade of trees, to flop down on the grass and to let his tired body take a rest, to close his eyes and drift off to sleep. Or to at least take a break._

_Instead, he kept running. He couldn't stop, or his pursuers would catch up, and he would have lost this round._

_He pushed himself beyond limits he never knew existed. Never in his life had he ever felt this tired, that his stamina that he had thought to be boundless could be strained._

_The hell was unbearable, but he forced himself on through sheer force of will, ignoring the protests of his screaming muscles and overworked lungs._

_An image of blood came to his mind. Lots of blood. His blood. The mocking grin of the faceless man with the katana, who had almost become his executioner. He gritted his teeth. No. Compared to that, this was nothing._

_The far-off, but very much real goal he had to achieve hovered in his mind, a stark reminder why he couldn't stop._

_He couldn't let them win. He couldn't stop now. He couldn't give up now. Not when he was so close._

_He _couldn't_ die now._

_One foot in front of the other, he repeated in his head, urging himself on._

* * *

**_Five_**

**_Hollow_**

* * *

_A piece of paper was thrust into his hands._

_The Konoha Ansatsu Senjutsu Tokushu Butai, read the kanji at the top of the paper, the signature spiral symbol of the elite battalion imprinted on the top left-hand of the sheet of paper._

_"An application to enlist in the ANBU?" He did not conceal his surprise._

_"Yes, Itachi. I want you to join the ANBU," His father said simply. _

_"What about the Military Police?" He did not have to say anymore. His father knew exactly what he meant._

_Why do you want me to join the ANBU instead of the Military Police- the standard for every Uchiha? _

_Not to mention that the ANBU was a unit that carried out the most dangerous of missions and were tasked with the most important of responsibilities concerning the security of the Hidden Leaf. _

_What did he want to tell his father- that he was only twelve years old, perhaps a little too young to join a squad made up of professional killers?_

_His father's eyes were guarded, and Itachi knew that the man was holding back something._

_Uchiha Fugaku finally answered after a moment's silence, "The ANBU is an elite unit under the Hokage. I believe you are ready, and it will be good experience that you will bring to the Military Police, eventually."_

_

* * *

_

_"You will be trained by the very best of the Hidden Leaf," He pronounced carefully, but yet with much flourish, "you will accept your new duty, this new path that you are to walk without any objections."_

_He looked at the small figure of the young blond boy, the faintly troubled expression he wore, the look of petulance and coldness that mingled in his blue eyes. He could see it, the frustration and anger warring with the resignation inside him. Whether he should just let go, just accept his fate._

_The same eyes so similar to those of another ninja, one of the greatest ninjas ever. That same ninja who was practically an unrivaled genius and prodigy, the genius seen in him comparable to the one the Sandaime had seen in Orochimaru of the Sannin._

_Yes. He could see a potential that rivaled- or perhaps even exceeded the Yondaime Hokage in this young boy's eyes._

_He would make an excellent asset, a perfect soldier._

_"Accept this, for this is an act of generosity on our part," Koharu said stiffly, to his left, "For you would have been severely disciplined and stripped of your right to become a ninja for your actions on that night on the 24th of July. The death of a Konoha ninja- one from the Uchiha clan, no less- resulted directly from your actions."_

_For that moment, the blond's previously expressionless face shifted. He lifted his glacial eyes, the his lips twitching up into the barest ghost of a chilly smile._

_He noticed how Koharu stiffened imperceptibly. She, like him, may have been a Village Elder and out of active duty for many years, but their ninja instincts had never lost their edge. He could see the faint unease in her posture, beneath the dignified and grave exterior. She did not like that expression of the Kyuubi boy._

_"It is a sign that perhaps he is not entirely sane." She later revealed her concern after the demon container had left. _

_"If I had not had the Nine-tails sealed in me...perhaps my life would not even have played out this way."_

_He detected the resignation in the boy's voice. Defeat had won out._

_Now it was _his _turn to smile._

_"Very well. Your training will begin in two days' time. You will now be briefed on further details of your enlistment into the Konoha ANBU."_

_He could see it in that steely blue gaze the boy possessed, the unrivaled power and strength that lay dormant within him, that held such great potential, were it to be tapped to its fullest. The crude roughness that could be polished and refined into something of unmatched quality. A brilliant diamond in the rough._

_Koharu's concerns were insubstantial, trivial and silly. The boy was young, his mind could be easily molded into their liking. A mind that fumed and raged against the villagers of the Hidden Leaf could be turned inside out- transformed into one that embraced the patriotism to Konoha with a fanatical zealotry._

_It did not matter if he was not sane- or normal in the conventional sense. The lesser the "normal" emotions, the lesser the troublesome emotional and sentimental ties that the Sandaime valued as being essential to a ninja- the old fool- he thought with some condescension. His nemesis' logic had gone that what made a ninja strong was their heart. A heart, and the emotional attachments to their loved ones._

_It was when they had something to value, something to protect and fight for, that made them strong._

_He scoffed. Emotional attachments only served to hamper progress. Emotional attachments were cumbersome objects that only tripped ninja up and made them soft._

_The Sandaime ought to have known it best, after all; emotional attachments were the reason his student Orochimaru of the Sannin was still running around somewhere._

_ Remaining an ever-present threat to the Leaf all because his teacher could not bring himself to take down a traitor who was an old student._

_Ninja were essentially the military power of a country. They were soldiers- that was the bottom line- no matter how some people tried to dress it up into something far more fantastical and grand._

_To him, all the better if the boy wasn't exactly normal. The innate conscience and sense of right and wrong the boy seemed to lack were all bonuses. He would not feel undue hesitation to carry out his duties due to silly emotional encumbrances or a deluded sense of morality._

_All the makings of a good soldier._

_He could see the perfect weapon, the flawless killing machine the boy would become, the powerful trump card he would be for the Hidden Leaf._

_Still, his lips pursed into a deep frown as he recalled the fact that the Sandaime and his two former teammates had been considerably more wary. Koharu and Homura might have been more supportive than the Sandaime, but all the same, they had derailed his plans to have sole supervision over the boy's training._

_Nonetheless, he would see that the boy was polished into the sharpest weapon for the Leaf to wield._

_

* * *

_

His blue eyes were sharp, his expression one of intense concentration as he faced his enemy. He judged it worthy to quickly wipe off the sweat that was in danger of trickling into his eyes from his brow with a quick swipe of the back of his palm, not once taking his eyes off his masked opponent who stood across the room.

Seconds ticked by slowly, interminably. Naruto felt the impatience grow within him.

What the hell was she waiting for?

He repressed a sigh as it became immediately obvious that the female ninja was forcing him to make the next move; to take the offense rather than defense this time around.

He stared at the long, almost elegant blade of the katana the kunoichi held with skillful precision in her right hand, the sharp edge of the metal shining. Then back to his bare hands.

That was kind of unfair, really. Not that he had ever held any illusions that the people he was dealing with had ever cared about fairness in the first place. It was in fact, the reason he was in this mess to begin with, he reminded himself.

Being forced to face a more experienced ninja armed with a long, sharp katana, whilst he was weaponless. And there were no other objects in the room that could suffice as weapons. He couldn't break off a wooden beam without risking bringing the whole ceiling down on himself. A slightly less-sane and crazy part of him told him to go for it- the demon fox could probably heal him anyway.

He ignored it, as he assessed the situation.

So far, he was getting beaten rather badly, he thought looking at the cuts that marred his arms and face, and the blossoming bruise on his collar bone where that bitch had hit him. It had been intended for his throat, but he'd managed to move at the last moment.

So he resigned himself to doing what she obviously was waiting for him to do.

He ran at her, ducking under the anticipated swing of her blade, attempting to send a ridge-knife strike into her throat. She blocked him with one arm-guarded hand effortlessly. He hurriedly created some pathetic-looking bunshins, knowing full well their uselessness. She easily dispelled them into clouds of smoke, and he had to flip backwards to avoid the returning arc of her sword.

He did not return empty-handed however, as he revealed with a smirk, holding the two kunai he'd snagged from the kunoichi's holster in the brief confusion he'd created with his otherwise useless bunshins.

The female ninja gave an audible snort at his accomplishment, which he was sure was coupled with a disdainful expression under her porcelain mask.

"That is hardly anything to celebrate about, you fool." Her voice was sharp and condescending.

She could not seem to resist squeezing in a taunt. "So far you have failed to even land one hit on me. All that has changed is that your speed is now slow, a marginal improvement from sluggish."

He looked at her skeptically.

"Is that right, kunoichi-san? If I were an enemy ninja, and my goal was simply to steal a scroll containing sensitive information- instead of your kunai- and that I managed to accomplish that would be enough for me to succeed in my mission," He returned smartly, flinging one of the knives at his opponent.

She did not even bother repelling it, she simply slightly inclined her head to the side, allowing the dagger to embed itself on the wall behind her.

"How wasteful, really, Uzumaki." She now stepped forward, "Such poor aim, you should be ashamed of yourself."

This time, she took the initiative, charging at him. He jumped over the swing of her sword this time, flipping backwards and aiming a roundhouse kick which she blocked. He did not pause, striking out with a fist towards her masked face.

She stopped the punch, single-handedly grabbing his arm and flipped him on his back onto the floor with a loud thud.

Only for him puff into a kunai. A replacement. It did not take her long to put things together, and she whirled around just in time to avoid a slash from his kunai, where he had appeared after switching himself with the kunai he had thrown into the wall earlier.

He did not pause, this time aiming a knife-strike at her unprotected throat with stunning speed. She wouldn't be able to block it at such close proximity, he'd calculated.

She must really have valued her pride, he figured, which must have explained why she lashed out recklessly with a vicious kunai stab into his chest in a bid to stop his advance, despite the tacit rules that she would not attempt any fatal or near-fatal moves- one had to take some pity on a seven-year-old boy, after all. His shirt ripped, exposing the bleeding wound.

The pain was excruciating- he was sure she had somehow ensured that the knife blade had strategically got between his ribs and had sliced into his lung, as he stumbled backwards, hacking up blood.

Just great. She didn't look like she was about to help him either.

Was this how he was going to die- or at least come close to dying again?

On the bright side, there wasn't as much blood as the time that asshole whom he had later stabbed in the throat had trussed him up that night.

The female ANBU watched with some sort of alarm and confusion as the demon vessel staggered, the blood seeping through his clothes rapidly, the dark crimson spot growing bigger and bigger rapidly.

He looked as though he might slump against the wall and lose consciousness any moment.

"You...damned bitch..." She heard him grind out through clenched teeth instead, as he slowly stood up shakily.

She was oblivious to his insults. Instead, her wide eyes behind her mask were fixed upon the exposed wound on his chest that appeared to be regenerating and sealing up before her very eyes.

He winced as he fought to catch his breath, as the kunoichi regained her composure.

He was sure she was smiling behind her mask in pure sadism.

"Again." She repositioned herself in a fighting stance.

By the the time he had finished his training for the day, he had been reduced to a gelatinous mass of aching muscles and chakra exhaustion.

The walk to the showers felt like a marathon, he felt as though the energy had been completely sapped from him, he was so tired, there didn't seem to be a single muscle and joint that didn't ache. Still, he forced his overworked leg tendons on.

He would not give them an opportunity to mock him by passing out in the hallway. Showing them any sign of weakness was just inconceivable.

He then limped to his designated room, unceremoniously throwing his tired form onto the bed. It was only ten o' clock, and he would normally be still awake. This time, oblivion came almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.

* * *

_"Naruto..." The old man's face had been apologetic._

_"What's happening?" He asked dully, "So I am the container of the Kyuubi no Yoko, huh?" _

_"Yes, Naruto. That is the truth. The Yondaime Hokage did it to save the village, and he had in fact wished that you would be seen as a hero for taking on such a heavy burden." He could see the anger and confusion warring in Naruto's eyes._

_"You are merely its jailer. You are not the demon." Sarutobi was eager to stress that point. _

_Naruto laughed, a hollow one, "Seems like the villagers had trouble realizing that."  
_

_"And now...what is going to happen to me? It's because of that Uchiha's death, huh?" _

_"Forgive me, Naruto...The circumstances are such that we don't have much of a choice. If you have any problems, do not hesitate to approach me," He had to give credit that the old man actually looked sorry, "Naruto, I ask you, please try, try not to lose faith in others."_

_He was telling him to learn to trust. _

_Naruto didn't think he could.  
_

* * *

And so it went on and on.

It had only been a week so far, but if felt like an eternity.

One day seemed practically indistinguishable from the next, the seven days blending together into some haze of pain, aching muscles and extreme exhaustion.

It had been another rough day for him. He'd had to fight the female ANBU captain armed with one of the standard-issue ANBU katana _unarmed_. Again. They seemed to particularly favor this activity for some reason. Officially, it was to improve his taijutsu.

Needless to say, he had gotten the crap kicked out of him. He did manage to give that woman a bruise to the stomach, at least- at the cost of getting a painful, diagonal slash to his right arm. It had healed within a minute, however. He smirked in perverse pleasure upon remembering that fact. It was a dent to her pride too, no doubt she would go down in infamy for allowing herself to be slugged in the stomach by a boy less than half her age.

Nevertheless, it had been unpleasant when his trainers had discovered his rapid healing rates, the extent of which he had done his best to hide. The ANBU kunoichi had not hesitated to report her astounding discovery about his sped-up healing and bodily regeneration during that particularly troublesome incident where she had wounded him with a kunai to the lung.

This had the effect of making them a lot more careless about restraining their true strength. After all, what did it matter, a slash here, a cut there? Or even a stab to the lung-heck, that one had even been tried and tested. The Kyuubi vessel would be good as new in a few minutes or an hour, depending on the severity of the injury.

Amazingly, apparently, the kunoichi had not even felt the presence of the Kyuubi's chakra when he had undergone his "shocking" regeneration. How this was supposed to be some sort a startling development had escaped him, though last he checked, the few ANBU medical ninja that were involved in his case were still debating what this meant.

He had a strong suspicion that some of them were keen on seeing what would happen if they managed to completely cut off a limb. _Would he grow a new one- muscle, bone and all? Or would the wound simply just seal up, albeit at an extra-fast rate?_

Fortunately, they never outright tried such a thing, although there were occasions where they came dangerously close.

They were too afraid of losing such a valuable _weapon _over such idiocy, or even risking crippling him for life to pull such a stunt. Well, he supposed there were plenty of them who didn't care, but only restrained themselves because they had to answer to their superiors, all of whom _did _care.

He also knew that some of them probably were harboring the same sort of sad, tired antagonism over the Kyuubi's attack on the village eight years ago, and relished getting to kick him around.

Legally, this time. What fun, he thought sarcastically.

In any case, the whole charade got rather unnerving after a while. The only two ANBU he was familiar with, that silver-haired, Dog-masked captain and his subordinate never made an appearance. His trainers always kept their masks on, and they rarely spoke, save for a few of the more conversational ones like that crazy katana-wielding bitch. Even then, they never talked about themselves. Thus, he had absolutely not one clue as to their identities.

It was akin to fighting ghosts.

* * *

_"Well, friend, what do you think?" _

_The Sandaime smiled genially, though it did not reach his eyes. They were cold and impenetrable, like obsidian._

_"You know very well what I think...Danzou." _

_The war hawk had to admire the Sandaime's flawless performance. There was no evidence in his tone about the unfriendliness that he knew the Hokage harbored against him. _

_The two of them had always been nemeses, and the recent events that had unfolded only stoked the underlying rivalry that still festered between the two of them. Danzou smiled. It had not all ended when the Sarutobi had gotten the position as the Sandaime Hokage over him._

_Danzou continued, unperturbed, "That boy shows the same genius and potential that the Yondaime possessed. He has the potential to surpass Namikaze Minato." _

_He went on when the other man remained silent._

_"I think the boy is very much like your beloved predecessor...no?"_

_Sarutobi took his time to answer. And when he did, his expression was grim._

_"No...Naruto...the Naruto now is nothing like his father, Danzou. And that is what I do not like about this whole thing." _

_The former ANBU Commander's (1) single exposed eye narrowed._

_"I wonder, why weren't you there when I, with your two ex-teammates went to brief the boy about his new status? Your presence could have helped make the boy feel more reassured, you know, instead of just speaking with him afterwards."_

_A flash of chilly anger in the normally calm man's expression._

_"I had no intention of giving Naruto the impression that I, in any shape or form, endorsed this idea. _You _know the only reason I agreed." _

_The atmosphere in the room was now downright hostile. Danzou knew the Hokage was not a man who lost his temper easily. It was just an unmistakable signal to him._

_Danzo smiled pitilessly, "The Uchiha are getting restless, eh?" _

_"They have a long memory, Danzou. Their capacity for holding grudges has not diminished." The old Hokage's tone was one of foreboding._

_"Now, let us not get sidetracked...so how has it gone?" Sarutobi continued, as he settled behind his desk._

_"The Konoha ANBU has accepted Uchiha Itachi into its ranks. It should be noted that even though a few of our scouts were already interested in him, they had yet to approach him. He himself applied to join the ANBU. I personally find that very interesting." _

_" Surely his father would have rather him joined the Military Police, is that not right? Few Uchiha have joined the ANBU to begin with, and even those that did joined the Military Police first." _

_Danzou's smile was bereft of mirth, "It seems suspicious, does it not? Perhaps an act of teenage rebellion. However, it is unlikely Uchiha Fugaku, as we know him, would have allowed such a thing. Which is why I question your willingness to let him into the ANBU. Surely his talents cannot be questioned, but what about his intentions?" _

_"I am realistic, Danzou. I see no reason why we should bar the boy from entering because of a political rivalry as old as the village that the elders of his clan no doubt still possess. If...Itachi's intentions for entering the ANBU are less than benign, it would arouse suspicions in them as to whether we are on to any plans they might have. Conversely, if it turns out we are just being paranoid, it will not help if we give them the impression that we rejected him out of mistrust of the Uchiha clan." _

_"Still, it is tricky. He may get a heads up about the Kyuubi container being trained in the ANBU, even with all the extensive precautions that we have taken, instead of being supposedly stripped of his ninja rank for life, which is the farce we orchestrated in order to appease the grumbling Uchiha elders who feel the boy is responsible for Uchiha Shisui's death," Danzou's gaze traveled to the portrait of the four Hokages on the wall, to the face of the Shodai Hokage._

_Senju Hashirama. The leader of the powerful Senju clan that had formed the union with the Uchiha clan that had brought into existence the Village of the Hidden Leaf. _

_The age-old rivalry that had been born between the two clans even before the birth of the Hidden Leaf. The rivalry that had always existed even under the supposed truce, the bloated egos of those Sharingan-wielders so easily bruised, he thought in disdain._

_Sarutobi's eyes were sharp, "I have no doubt they suspect that we assassinated him. The meeting I had with Uchiha Fugaku was not pleasant. They demanded to see the body of the other intruder who had inflicted the injuries that Shisui had died from. We said that it was impossible, as you know. They then insisted that Naruto be punished for at least indirectly causing Shisui's death, though they made no secret of the fact that they personally suspected that Naruto was the one who killed him."_

_"Is it worth the risk that Uzumaki Naruto's cover gets blown, just to win back the trust- or at least quell the discontent of a few egocentric Uchiha?" Danzou asked, his tone critical._

_"Perhaps I should also have second thoughts about the plan to train Naruto under the ANBU," Sarutobi returned easily._

_Danzou bristled, hurrying to recover his composure. _

_"The boy needs to be able to learn to defend himself well. He faces dangers not just from some vengeful Uchiha; there are no doubt others who wish to harness the power of the Nine-tails demon fox to use as a weapon against us. And there were signs that the boy was going out of control- this is a perfect way to allow us to watch over him and instill in him discipline and patriotism for Konoha." _

_"No need to worry Danzou...as much as I am rather averse to this plan, I recognize we have few options. I will be watching closely, however, and I intend to receive regular reports from you and his trainers about his status. I trust that our ninja involved are well-trained enough to ensure the security of this...programme." _

_Danzou felt a slight flicker of irritation at the faint amusement he could see in the other man's eyes at his being able to unnerve him. He squashed it easily, no need to be petty. _

_"As to Uchiha Itachi, I think you know well, Danzou, that as ninja, sometimes we have to take calculated risks. It is a chance for us to have access to an Uchiha, instead of all of them being segregated from the rest of the village in the Uchiha Military Police. It will be good for Itachi. I intend to make sure that these strained ties do not get anymore frayed." _

_"Very well, Hokage-sama."_

_It was the first time throughout the entire conversation that he had referred to the man by his title. He had to recognize that Sarutobi deserved it, as much as he was loathe too. Still, he would watch out for when the man was too soft and made decisions that could harm the Hidden Leaf._

_And he wouldn't hesitate to assert his influence then. _

_

* * *

_

Itachi watched in undisguised amusement as Sasuke glared at him from his prone position on the ground, his attempt to master Itachi's technique of simultaneously hitting eight targets in a clearing with kunai having failed rather miserably.

A chuckle escaped him despite his best attempts to control himself.

"Stop laughing, Itachi-nii! I'll show you again!" Sasuke, his face in a pout and red with embarrassment, as he tried to get up, having landed badly. He let out a yelp as his left ankle buckled when he placed weight on it.

"Careful, Sasuke, it's most likely sprained," Itachi made his way over, "Don't overexert yourself. You have plenty of time. It took me a long while to master this technique myself."

Sasuke sulked, "Don't lie, brother. I know you're trying to make me feel better, but you probably learned it in a week, didn't you?"

The older Uchiha smiled, "I'm not lying. Some things may come to me easily, but I wouldn't get anywhere without putting in any effort." He ended his sentence with a finger flick to Sasuke's forehead, much to said boy's indignation.

"If you want, I can teach it to you some other time. Come on, we should head home. I'll carry you."

Sasuke blushed in embarrassment, torn between appearing weak- _it was only a sprained ankle_!- and accepting Itachi's offer. The muscle was beginning to throb rather unpleasantly, after all.

In the end, he climbed onto Itachi's back after two minutes of anguished indecision. He came to the conclusion that if he further injured his ankle, he might have to be absent from the Academy tomorrow, and would thus be left in further behind and not be able to catch up to Itachi.

Thus, the potential gain was worth the embarrassment of having to be carried by his brother, he justified.

Itachi smiled. It'd been a long time since he had felt so at ease, or even laughed. It was nice to spend time with his younger brother, to take a breather from everything else.

* * *

"That's the Konoha Military Police Headquarters," he pointed out to the passenger on his back, as they came to the large, imposing building that stood on the side of the busy street

Sasuke stared at the symbol of the shuriken that sported the distinctive red-and-white emblem of the Uchiha clan.

"This is where Father works, isn't it, Itachi-nii? Is that why it has our clan's symbol on it?"

"Well, Father is the head of the Konoha Police force. But this organization itself was founded by our ancestors, and many of our clan members continue to work there, which is why our family emblem is placed there," Itachi's gaze was pensive and thoughtful, "It's a symbol of honor, honoring how the Uchiha clan has protected and enforced the order in Konoha since a long time ago."

"The only ones who can enforce the laws on shinobi's crimes are superior shinobi," he continued, almost absently, getting lost in his thoughts.

"Wow! Father's really awesome, isn't he, Itachi-nii?" He could see the admiration and adoration in Sasuke's eyes.

He wondered why he felt a strange twinge of something at that.

_No, Sasuke...Father, he... _He stopped himself just as he was about to utter those forbidden words that so many things rested on. Words that would shatter the world Sasuke lived in.

"You're going to join it, aren't you? You should!" Sasuke asked excitedly, "_I'm_ gonna join the Military Police when I grow up!"

Those words hit him with a jolt. _You're going to join it, aren't you? _

"Maybe," He left his answer as a non-committal one, "Let's hurry, we're late."

"You know, Itachi-nii, I'm really looking forward to going to the Academy tomorrow, they're going to start teaching us more fighting styles. I want to learn to be strong so I can protect what is important to me."

His brother's words echoed in his head as they walked down the street. The Hokage tower was just in sight, he could see the stylized leaf symbol that represented the Hidden Leaf. His eyes flicked back to the symbol of the Uchiha clan on the Military Police Building. And then to the boy he carried on his back.

_-Your duty is to the Uchiha clan, first and foremost, Itachi...-_

_What is important to _me_?_

That questioned lingered in his mind, unable to be banished to the recesses of his subconscious, as much as he tried.

He knew that it was only when he answered it that he would find his path.

His light thoughts darkened as he piggy-backed his brother home, the entrance of the Uchiha compound coming to sight.

_I'm not going to join the Military Police, you know that? _

_There're so many things you don't know, Sasuke. _

_

* * *

_

_He was not able to conceal the overwhelming shock of the words he had just heard. He tried to convince himself he had misheard, that this was just a stupid dream, but his surroundings remained as pin-sharp and grounded in reality._

_It did not matter that they had not decided on anything concrete yet. It was a madness itself that they were _even _considering doing this. _

_He wanted to shout, to fly into a rage, to knock over the low wooden table upon which their ostentatiously expensive teacups- made of the finest china-sat, to send them scattering to the floor, smashing to pieces, to do something reckless, to pick up the table and use it to beat some sense into their head. _

_To ask them if they had_ lost their minds_. To inform them that this was _madness_. _

_But he did not. Instead, he remained where he was seated, his expression returning back to its controlled facade, listening politely to the words his father and the other clan elders had to say._

_Like a good, obedient boy. He hated himself for that._

_"...and so, that is your true duty, Itachi. To the Uchiha clan _first and foremost_."_

_He felt sickened, the sense of achievement at his successful acceptance into the ANBU was now replaced by the uncomfortable realization that he had been manipulated all along. _

_They knew. They knew it _all this while_. _

_"That is why you had me join the ANBU?" He controlled his voice carefully. _

_Uchiha Yashiro frowned nonetheless, "Do not tell me you are having second thoughts, Itachi?" _

_"This is for the good of the Uchiha clan, Itachi. Do it for the clan."_

_The clan, the clan, the clan._

_He was beginning to tire of hearing it as of late._

_"Do it for _him_, do it for Shisui," His father continued, "His death was a senseless one, and yet the Village Council and the Hokage refuse to dignify us by even appropriately punishing the perpetrator." _

_"Uzumaki Naruto was expelled from the Academy and stripped of his ninja rank, no?" He asked, his voice hollow. _

_Uchiha Inabi laughed spitefully, "Is that even a punishment? That brat was last in class, he probably enjoys the fact he has more time to run around without any responsibilities." _

_"If that was really Uzumaki Naruto_. If _Uzumaki Naruto was not really trained as an assassin under the ANBU, and sent to assassinate Shisui."_

_

* * *

_

_If only you knew the things that Father and the clan are doing..._

The words he wanted to say so badly to his brother, the words that wouldn't come out. _The truth._ Instead, all he uttered were bare-faced lies. Lies to cover up an ugly truth.

_No, Sasuke, Father isn't who he appears to you, do you know that?_

_I wish you wouldn't spend so much effort trying to impress Father, Sasuke. I wish you would see that. _

_I wish I could tell you._

_If only you knew._

_

* * *

_

"You're late, Itachi, what were you doing?." His father was already waiting.

"F-father!" Sasuke was startled.

"Sasuke, go to Mother and get some ice for your leg, alright?" He deposited the boy on the ground.

Sasuke's gaze lingered on his father, then shifting back to his brother. Almost reluctantly, he turned to leave, carefully placing his weight on his uninjured leg.

He was now alone with his father.

"We have to hurry back." Uchiha Fugaku's dark eyes betrayed the impatience and slight disapproval in them.

Absently, Itachi rubbed his right bicep. It was there that the symbol of the Konoha ANBU would be tattooed onto his arm, by this time tomorrow, he realized.

* * *

_He knew that the notion of gaining some freedom from the stifled trappings of the clan had played a role in his agreeing to fill out his application form and sit through the various interviews, background checks and practical tests. _

_There had been a reason why he had agreed so readily. Why he had been careless, and ended up allowing himself to be used._

_The reason he had swallowed Fugaku's lies so easily. The reason he had not listened to the faint suspicion that he had held about his father's intentions. To the part within him that told him to consider things carefully and not to agree so readily. _

_Because deep down, he had wanted to go some place where he wouldn't be perpetually under the command or influence of the Uchiha clan. He had wanted to just serve the Leaf, instead of having to do everything also in tandem with the self-interest of the Uchiha clan._

_They'd taken advantage of the knowledge that he strove, to a certain extent, for independence. He knew that that to a certain degree, he had _wanted _to join the ANBU despite some misgivings. Joining the ANBU meant he would be under the direct command of the Hokage, and not his father or any other member of the Uchiha clan._

_To think that he thought he would gain some sort of independence if he joined the ANBU...instead, this way, he became their tool more than ever. _

_

* * *

_

"Yes, I am aware of that, Father." He closed his eyes, as he followed the older man.

_What is important to me...? _

_

* * *

_

**(1) Kind of a spoiler from manga chapter 446. It strongly hints that Danzou was in a position of authority within the Konoha ANBU, not just over Ne (Root). **

**In the conversation between Danzou and Sarutobi, the feeling I get is that the two do have some sort of rivalry, but being part of the village leadership, they nevertheless have to work together. Danzou disagrees with the Sandaime's ideology, but he can't deny that the man does know what he's doing. I don't think Danzou would ever outright make a play for power or try to oppose the Sandaime at every turn. I think he knows he has to pick his battles carefully.**

**Itachi's coming into prominence now, and he is going to play a pretty important role in the story.  
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**And yes, by now there are some questions popping up, right? Well, you'll find out more in future chapters :D**

**Well, that's chapter five for you guys (: As you can see, I'm progressively increasing the length of my chapters- this one is over 7,000 words, instead of the usual 4-5000.**

**Please read and review!**

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